


Standing in the Eye

by ReaperWriter



Series: These Lines Across My Face [9]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: But There May Be Some Angst, F/F, M/M, Original Characters - Freeform, Queer Friendly, Scenes and Stories That Didn't Fit in the Series, because i'm me, mostly soft, one shots
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:21:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 21
Words: 35,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26764990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ReaperWriter/pseuds/ReaperWriter
Summary: One shot stories from Gwyn's life as an immortal that didn't fit well within the series. Some featuring other members of the Old Guard. Some just her. POVS vary. Enjoy...Chapter 1: Booker over hears Gwyn and Ioan talking about Ioan's first Pride, and tries to help make him feel comfortable expressing himself.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Series: These Lines Across My Face [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1852702
Comments: 46
Kudos: 78





	1. True Colors

**Author's Note:**

> It was the last time, I said that last time, it became a past time... Or, my muse decided we weren't done after all.
> 
> A series of one shots from throughout the series. No chronological order. Just writing things as they come to me. I'll be leaving this open for as these come to mind. 
> 
> The title of the fic is from Brandi Carlile's The Eye.
> 
> The first chapter title is from Cyndi Lauper's song of the same name.

It wasn’t a habit Booker set out to develop. Eavesdropping. Not after that day on the ship where he overheard Gwyn and Manvir. It just happened sometimes. Too many years of learning to move his height and bulk silently in the interest of dying less on missions made him a quiet walker.

So when he stepped into the croft’s main house a week before Swansea’s big planned Pride celebrations to ask Gwyn if she needed anything from town since he needed to go to the art supply, he hadn’t set out to overhear anything. It just happened.

“It doesn’t matter what other people think, Ioan my love,” Gwyn said from the dining room, just through the door from the kitchen. Booker stopped. “It matters what you think and what makes you happy. Life is often so short, you shouldn’t let the opinions of others rob you of the joy in it.”

“You’re telling me life is short?”

Booker fought down a snort at his nephew in all but blood. The lad had a point. 

“My first life ended when I wasn’t awfully much older than you. And for all but a select few of us, that would have been the end.” Gwyn paused, and even without seeing her, the mug of tea rising to her lips was clear in his mind’s eye. “So talk me through what you’re thinking.”

“So, it’s Pride. Right? People wear things for it. Things they might not normally wear.” Ioan’s voice sounded hesitant, and Booker quietly took a seat at the smaller kitchen table. It would be his first Pride this year, and Gwyn wanted him to have a good experience. Hell, Booker wanted him to have a great experience. 

“Some people do. Some people wear everyday clothes.”

“But I want to make a big deal of it. And I thought…” Ioan paused, gathering his thoughts. “Painting my nails seemed like a fun way to do it. But then...I’m a guy, Gwyn.”

“I’ve never doubted you on that, my love.”

“But, like, other people have. And guys don’t paint their nails.”

Oh, sweet boy. Booker bit his lip.

“I just...I’ve worked so hard for people to see the real me, you know. And I’m afraid if I do this thing, they won’t.” He could hear the tremor in his voice. “And it’s stupid, I know. Toxic masculinity and antiquated gender roles. It’s so stupid. But I’m scared.”

“Oh, my love.” A chair moved, and Booker knew Gwyn was holding Ioan now. Standing, he left the house as silently as he’d come.

***

Since coming to the croft, Booker had spent so much time painting. He had watercolors and acrylics and oils by the score. He understood color theory well. But as he looked at the display of polishes available at the local shop, the sheer options were overwhelming. So many colors, some with glitter mixed in, others suggested alongside glitter topcoats.

Staring at his phone and a primer on various Pride flags, he sighed. What the hell did he buy?

“Can I help you?”

He turned and found a young woman in a store employee smock with a bemused expression lighting up her face.

“God, please.”

She laughed. “What are you looking for?”

He paused, momentarily worried of her reaction. Then he saw the small pin under her name badge-Helen- that read, ‘My Pronouns are She/Her’.

“My nephew is trans, and is going to his first Pride next week.” The girl smiled. “He wanted to paint his nails for it, but he worried people would see him as less of a man if he did, so I thought if we did it together, it might make him comfortable. But while I paint canvases, I’ve never painted nails and, well.” He waved his hand at the display helplessly.

Helen’s smile had only grown wider as he talked. “That’s so cool of you. Can I make suggestions then?”

“Of course. Anything you think we might need.”

“Right.” She picked up a first bottle. “This one is great because it basically dries in rainbow holographic. So it’s good for Pride overall, if you don’t want to go too specific about an orientation, or you’re going as an ally.”

Ally was the term he and Gwyn had discussed. Not that Booker hadn’t had stray thoughts in his two hundred odd years of immortality. But none he’d really let get too far. Not between the guilt and the grief and the pain. Maybe in another hundred years. Or two. “Okay.” He took that one, adding it to the basket.

“Now, if your nephew wants to do something trans specific, you’d want these three,” she said, holding up pale pink and blue and a white. “I’m bi, so when I do my nails for pride, I do the bi flag colors on my three inner nails, and then use the holographic rainbow on my thumb and little finger. It looks cool.”

Booker smiled. “Appropriate for him, but not an ally, right?” He asked as he took the colors. 

“Right.”

“What about someone whose asexual?” 

Helen nodded. “They have a flag with four colors, so it can get a little tricky. I’ve done a friend's nails, and just done the rainbow on the thumb for them.” She rooted around the display, coming up with three more bottles. “You already have the white, so it would be black, grey, and a nice purple.”

“Got it. Anything else we need? Assume we have nothing.” Gwyn’s nails had been painted when he first met her, but since they’d come to the croft, she hadn’t bothered. He had no idea what she might or might not have.

“Right then.” In a few minutes, she’d added a clear top coat, remover, a basic manicure kit, and a bag of cotton buds to his basket. Then she paused. “Can I see your phone for a moment?”

Booker blinked, then handed it to her. It was theoretically a burner anyway. He could get a quick replacement if he had to. 

Helen opened an app and spent a moment typing furiously with her thumbs. Then she handed it back to him. “I’ve put a list of good YouTube channels in your notes. They do great tutorials on all this. If you need them.”

“Thank you, Helen. Truly.”

She paused. Then gave him a soft smile. “My family is supportive in their way. But my dad would never think to do something like this. So thank you. You’ve quite made my day.”

Booker couldn’t think of what else to say to that, so he nodded to her and let her lead him to the check out.

***

His first attempt was...not great. There had been swearing. The word merde had echoed through his cottage many, many times. But by the time dinner rolled around, he’d gotten a decent coat of holographic rainbow polish on each of his nails and mostly only his nails, with a top coat. And you could only see smudges on two of them.

Sighing, he dropped the bottles back in the bag, and carried it with him over to the croft itself, pushing open the kitchen door and leaving it sitting on the counter. “Gwyn? Ioan?”

“Dining room,” Gwyn called.

Booker took a deep breath and walked through.

Gwyn had bowls of thick stew set out with fresh baked bread and the butter crock. “We missed you today, Sébastien. I popped over to see if you had any interest in movies after dinner tonight.”

“Could do. Bonjour, Ioan.” Booker took a deep breath, setting down across from the boy, and casually setting his hands on the table.

“Bonjour, Sébastien, comment alle…” Ioan stopped, staring at Booker’s hands.

“Ioan?” Gwyn asked, looking up from her glass of lemonade. “What’s the matter?”

“How did you…?” Ioan’s words came out soft and a little broken, and Booker’s heart stopped. Maybe he should have brought the idea up instead. He hadn’t meant to hurt the boy.

“I heard you talking, and I...I wanted to support you.” Booker swallowed. “Anyone should be able to wear what they wish, Ioan.”

“Oh, Sébastien,” Gwyn breathed.

Ioan didn’t say another word, just shoved his chair back and hurried around the table, wrapping Booker in a tight hug.

Booker hugged him back. “I love you, Ioan. Very much. And we don’t have to, if you don’t want to. But if you do, I bought different polish options, and remover.” He paused, laughing a little. “Though Gwyn might need to help. I’m not the best at it yet.”

“I love you too, Sébastien.” The boy’s grip didn’t loosen. “Tonight, after dinner? While we watch the movie?”

“I’d like that.” Booker glanced at Gwyn, who sat wiping tears from her eyes. “A lot.”

“Okay.”

After they’d eaten, while Ioan did dishes, Gwyn helped Booker set out the polishes and other supplies on the coffee table in the great room. 

“I’m grateful, you know,” she said, laying down a layer of newspaper in case of spills. “That you stayed all those months ago. I could do this on my own, but he’s lucky to have you in his life. We both are.”

“I’m the lucky one, ma soeur.” Booker set the trans pride polishes out, and then the asexual pride ones next to them. “Thank you for letting me love him too.”

Gwyn moved then, wrapping her arms around him. “I know it was hard at the end, but I know you were a good father, Sébastien. I see it everyday with how you are with Ioan. Never forget that, okay?”

“I thought I was the fun uncle?” he joked, his laugh a little wet.

“You’re that too. But you’re more, and I see it. He does too.”

“Are you guys okay?” Ioan asked from the door, a tray with fresh lemonades in his hands.

“We’re fine,” Booker said, pulled back. “Now, come sit, and before we start the movie, we can talk about options for polish.”

Ioan smiled, and that was all that mattered.


	2. Count My Ribs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the late 15th Century, Gwyn meets up with Yusuf and Nico outside of Milan and grants their request to finally let them teach her self-defense. Her little brothers are in for a bit of a surprise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter title comes from Dessa's FIRE DRILLS

Gwyn sat at the edge of the portico with her charge, the daughter of the Duke of Milan, both of them working on their embroidery. She had grown fond of Bianca these last two years, but the girl had a marriage coming. Soon, she’d be married to another noble house. And Gwyn, called Giovanna these days, would move on. To where, she didn’t know yet. The others had returned to the peninsula, ostensibly to try to check some of the ambitions of the Borgias. Perhaps she'd head to Roma and join them. 

“Excuse me, Signora Giovanna?”

Gwyn turned to find one of the maids there, a note on a silver salver. She took it, smiling at Bianca before opening the somewhat complex letter lock on it.

_G- Cousin Nunzio ill. Come to the villa at Rosio with all speed. N_

Well, that sounded ominous as all.

“Oh,” Gwyn said, letting her face fall into a mask of seriousness. “Oh, dear.”

“Whatever is it?” Bianca asked. 

“There is a relative who is quite ill. My cousin Nicolo has written asking if I can come." She passed Bianca the note.

The girl read it. "How terrible. Are you sure it's safe to go? What if he has plague?"

Gwyn shook her head. "Nunzio has been sickly since we were children. Sadly, it has only been a matter of time." She rose. "By your leave, lady, I'll go and ask your father's permission to depart at once."

"Of course. Take care."

"Thank you, my lady."

***

It had taken a great deal of work to convince Ludovico Sforza his beloved daughter's favorite companion required no guard for her journey, only a swift horse. That proved fortuitous, as Gwyn had no family villa near Rosio. At least, not that she knew of. Unless they’d managed to acquire one. That would be wholly like Andromache.

Dressed simply, with a stash of men’s clothes tucked into her saddle bags, she set out from the stables the Sforzas used at dawn the next day. Her ride took her out the Porta Vercellina along the Via Carducci and out of the city. Air rushed around her as she rode, and she breathed freely for the first time in ages. Love Bianca as she did, Ludovico could be a tyrant. Riding like this? This was freedom.

The via flew by under her as the smaller towns near Milan fell away into vineyards and farms. Hay wains and boys leading pack mules passed her on the road, waving a hand in greeting. She returned it, comfortable in the saddle. 

After miles, the road emptied out as it entered a small area of forested land and Gwyn pulled her horse down to a trot. Were she planning this assignation, this is where she’d hold it. But to be safe, she dropped a hand to the knife hidden at her side under her cloak.

Sure enough, less than a hundred feet in, two men stepped into the road, their faces hidden by hoods, swords in their hands.

“Your valuables, lady, or your life,” called one in an Italian more suited for the North and the mountains of Liguria. 

“What makes you think you can claim either of me, you rogues?” she called back in Arabic.

Both men burst out laughing, raising their heads. Both wore beards, though Yusuf’s suited him far better than Nico’s did. Her youngest brother always had the face of an angel. He came forward now, holding her bridle for her to steady the horse as she swung down. “It is good to see you, mia sorella.”

“And you, fratellini.” She handed him her reins, then turned, getting swept into Yusuf’s arms. “Tell me, since when do we have a villa in Rosio?”

“I’m afraid the accommodations are more rustic than advertised,” Yusuf laughed. “Come.”

They led her through the woods, Yusuf telling her of their adventures in Roma and the Papal States while Nico followed with the horse. After a walk of a quarter hour, they came to a simple woodman's cottage. 

“Some villa,” she chided. “I’m glad I did not pack silks.”

“I’ll tend to the horse,” Yusuf offered. “Hayati, take the saddle bags inside? Fatima probably wishes for a drink of water after her ride.”

“And an explanation of why I’m here.” 

“In due time.”

Inside, a double bed and a second single cot were pressed up against two walls. A small table with three stools stood near the hearth, covered with provisions and an earthenware pitcher with matching tumblers. Nico walked over, settling her bags next to the single bed, then turned and offered her his own hug, gently cupping the back of her head.

“We have missed you, truly. As we always do when you aren’t with us.” He pulled back just a little. “I wish you did not leave us so much.”

Gwyn sighed softly. For all Nico had the heart of a lion in battle, he had such kindness in him. He and Yusuf. “You know to be a weapon isn’t my calling, Nico.”

He sighed. “About that.”

Gwyn raised an eyebrow, but before she could ask or Nico could say, Yusuf came into the cottage. “Nico, habibi, the water?”

“Si, presto.”

Soon, the three of them sat at the small table, drinking cool water from the well out back. Neither man said anything. Gwyn contented herself to wait. They’d summoned her after all.

Finally, Yusuf sighed. “Fatima, my sister, we summoned you here to beg a great favor of you.”

“Oh?” Gwyn took another careful sip, then set her cup down. “What does Andromache want?”

Nico shook his head. “Andromache has very little to do with it. She doesn’t know we’re speaking to you.”

Gwyn blinked, shocked. “Does she know you’re here, in Milan?”

“She sent us. But only to check on you and see that you were well. The Pope and his children have been...quiet, of late.” Yusuf let out a sigh. “Andromache and Quỳnh have gone down to assess the situation in Naples.”

“Why didn’t you just present yourselves at the palace? Have Nico pretend to be my cousin?”

“Too risky, with the tyrant you are working under.” Nico pulled a face. “Besides, we were to observe you. Not necessarily make contact. Unless…”

“Unless you were in danger,” Yusuf finished.

Gwyn’s eyebrows rose. “Danger? What danger?”

“There is a man from one of the lesser families. Every time you and the Sforza girl attend mass at the Duomo, he follows you. From the palace there and then home again.” Nico’s face went steely, the face he wore before battle.

Ice filled Gwyn’s veins. She’d kept an eye out of such threats, but she’d not seen such a man. “Are you sure? I’ve not spotted him.”

“Positive. Once might be a coincidence. Or he might have hoped to importune the daughter on her father’s behalf.” Yusuf shook his head. “Twice, perhaps. But we have been watching for almost a fortnight.”

“He’s after Bianca.” Gwyn felt ill. Thank heaven they never left the palace without an escort.

“No, mia sorella,” Nico said gently. “The two times you went alone, he followed you.”

Oh. Oh bother. Those days, she’d taken no escort. Had gone alone to mass early in the morning before the household had arisen.

“He stalks me?” 

“Si.” Nico looked hesitantly to Yusuf, then back at Gwyn. “That is why you must grant our favor. Let us spend the next two days showing you some basics of self-protection.”

The next words out of her mouth were unintelligible to either of her younger brothers, for while she loved them, she’d never felt the need to teach them the archaic form of Cymru she’d grown up speaking. Given how foulmouthed the string of words was, that, perhaps was for the best. 

Yusuf and Nico blinked at her.

She sighed. “I could also simply tell his unholiness Duke Ludovico that I have cause to fear for my safety and ask for a guard. If for nothing else, he would grant it for Bianca’s piece of mind. I had to talk him out of such guards for this trip.”

“He is not the only man to look at you that way, though,” Yusuf argued. “And if you insist on being where we cannot protect you, we would feel better knowing you could protect yourself or those with you.”

Gwyn sighed, her brother Hywel’s arguments ringing in her head. In truth, she still practiced what he’d taught her almost nine hundred years ago. And more besides, things she’d learned from those willing to teach her along the way, whenever her path diverged from Andromache and the others. She’d no wish to give the woman cause to raise her own arguments of making Gwyn into a warrior after all. As much as she loved her sister, they’re callings weren’t the same.

But Nico and Yusuf stared at her so earnestly, their concern for her naked on their faces.

Damn. Damn, damn, double damn.

“Very well. But I like this gown. Let me change into something I can bleed on.”

***

If either of them were surprised when she produced the wicked looking bollock dagger and strapped it to her belt, they didn’t say. Only nodded approvingly as she came out of the cottage into the small clearing clad in hosen, a shirt and doublet, her hair in a tight braid down her back.

Nico took the dagger from her and proceeded to spend the first few hours teaching her how to grapple with her hands alone, how to throw her elbows and gouge with her thumbs at sensitive places. How to knee a man where he’d remember it. 

Gwyn put on a good show of stumbling at first, before quickly picking up the moves. She made an error at one point, throwing Nico in a way he hadn’t shown her, but Yusuf laughed and called her a natural before taking over and showing her how to punch with a fist in a way that wouldn’t break her thumbs.

By the time they finished that, the sun was beginning to set, so they called it a night and went inside. Yusuf built up the fire while Nico put together a simple meal of bread, hard cheese, olives, and hard sausage.

“See, that wasn’t so bad, was it?” he said, setting it down when she returned from refilling the pitcher at the well. She’d taken the time to wash the dust from her face and hands.

“If one enjoys falling on their arse repeatedly, it’s a terribly pleasant interlude,” she agreed, hip checking him gently. “Are we doing more of it tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow, we’ll play with knives,” Yusuf offered cheerfully.

“Can’t wait.”

After dinner, they shared a small skin of wine, speaking of old adventures and good jests. Then they turned in for the night.

In the morning, armed again with her dagger, Gwyn tried to pay attention to Nico and Yusuf, she did, truly. But Nico kept calling various positions the names of animals, and Yusuf kept chuckling at him. 

Finally, she sighed. “Enough.”

Nico frowned. “Gwyn, we have not shown you…”

“Yusuf, fight me.”

“Fatima…”

“Fight. Me.”

Yusuf and Nico exchanged shocked glances, then looked back at her. “I don’t think…” Yusuf said.

Gwyn gave a shrieking cry, launching herself at them with her dagger held as Hywel had shown her all those years ago. Admittedly, the knife she’d learned on had been more like a saex, a small sword, but the bollock had a heavy handle to make up for the lack of heft in the blade.

Before either man recovered from the shock, she’d slashed down Nico’s arm, drawing blood and making him lose his weapon, before spinning and catching Yusuf in the head with the pommel of the dagger. He dropped like a stone. She came to a stop, weapon held up and in a defensive position.

Nico gapped between her and Yusuf, unconscious on the ground.

“So, do I pass?” she asked.

“Where…how…?” 

Yusuf groaned. 

Gwyn sheathed her dagger, moving to him. “Are you dead, my brother?”

Yusuf blinked his eyes open as Gwyn helped him sit up. “Oww. Who hit me?”

Nico sighed. “Our sister.”

Yusuf squinted at her. “A lucky shot?”

“I can do it again and let you be the judge.” She let Nico take his other arm, helping him stand. “Food and water? Or shall we go again?”

Over another simple meal, she sighed. “Go on, ask.”

“How long have you been able to fight?” Yusuf asked, shaking a piece of bread at her.

“Since I was a girl and my older brother insisted I learn.”

Nico slowly raised one eyebrow at her. “And you have muscle memory centuries later?”

Gwyn sighed. “I’ve kept my hand in and my training up. Sought other training as time went on. I know enough to protect myself, or others if need be.”

“What else?” They both leaned in.

Gwyn took a sip of water, then set the cup down. “Wrestling. Dirty street fighting. Knife fighting. Sword work. Axe throwing. Spear throwing. Archery with a longbow. How to shoot a crossbow. And thirteen ways to kill men that are not the business of men.”

When she finished, both men started laughing. “Oh, but Andromache will never believe it!” Yusuf’s laugh cut through the room. And then cut off when he found the point of the bollock dagger pressed to his throat.

“Andromache can never know. I’ve kept this from you because I’ve wished no secrets between the four of you all these years,” Gwyn said, arm steady and eyes taking in both Nico and Yusuf at once. “I won’t become a soldier for her. And if she knows, she would not be able to let that go in peace. She would pursue it from here until the end of her time or mine.”

“Gwyn, let him go,” Nico said calmly.

“Your words first,” she said, her heart pounding a quick tattoo in her chest. “I love you both. You are brothers of my heart. And I love Andromache and Quỳnh. But if you cannot give me your word in this, I’ll leave here today, and it will be lifetimes before you see me again, if ever. So, please. Make your choice.”

Yusuf slowly raised a hand to his heart, meeting her eyes. “On my honor, I swear it. Your secret shall be safe with me.”

Gwyn’s arm remained steady. “Nico?”

“You have my word, mia sorella.”

The knife disappeared in a flash, back into its sheath. Gwyn melted back onto her stool, her head dropping into her hands. “Shukran.”

“Afwan.” Yusuf reached carefully for her, gently resting a warm hand on one of her wrists. “For what it’s worth, I think you underestimate Andromache.”

“Perhaps. But I can’t take that risk. The way things are now works.” She raised her eyes to them. “I’d rather be able to be in your lives some of the time than none at all.”

“We are not meant to be alone,” Nico agreed.

She pressed her fingers to her chest, where her doublet hid the crucifix he’d given her years ago. “I’m never truly alone. But I would miss you all. Terribly.”

“Come back with us? To Roma.” Yusuf cocked his head. “Surely there is good you could do there.”

“Bianca weds in three months time. When it is done and she is settled, I’ll come to you.” She looked at each of them. “I promise.”

“Prego.” Nico smiled at her, his small, secret smile that so often only family saw. Their small family. “I don’t suppose you wish to spar again?”

“You want me to beat you again?”

“I want to see how I do know that I know what you can do.” He grinned at her.

“You have an idea.” She finished her water and her food. “Ten scudo says I draw first blood.”

“You’re on.”

Yusuf sighed. “One day, ya amar, you will learn not to bet against our sisters.”

“You think she will beat me?” Nico blinked at him.

Before he could turn, a sharp pain slashed his side. “Il cazzo di Dio!” 

“I win,” Gwyn called, running at a head start out the door.

“I think she will win because she fights like a dirty back street brawler,” Yusuf laughed, following her.

Sighing, Nico brought up the rear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mia sorella- my sister.  
> Fratellini- little brothers.  
> Hayati- My life  
> Habibi- My love  
> Shukran- Thank you  
> Afwan- You're welcome.  
> Ya amar- My moon.  
> Il cazzo di Dio- God's Cock.


	3. Ask Your Hands To Bleed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gwynog's father wants her to marry. Her latest suitor isn't happy to be told no.
> 
> ***  
> Gwyn's first death.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Gwynog's suitor threatens her with marriage by kidnap (i.e. sexual assault) and their discussion isn't pretty. Please skip this chapter if you need to.
> 
> The title for this one comes from Our Time in Eden, by 10,000 Maniacs

“He’s a good man, daughter.”

Gwynog sighed, exhausted. The fight between them was an old one, going for at least four years and at least as many so-called good men now. Myfanwy had wed at sixteen summers and had three children by the time she’d reached Gwynog’s nineteen summers. Gwynog remained stubbornly unwed.

“I wish no man, Father.” She cleared the plates from the table. Hers, her fathers, and the latest good man’s. He’d left to go out for a walk, most likely so her father could talk sense into her. Much good it might do him. “I never have.”

“No man but your Christ. It’s unnatural.”

Gwynog bristled. “Or holy. Or have you forsaken the church since mama died.”

“Don’t speak of your mother to me, girl. She wed me as was proper and we were happy.”

“She had so many children for you, it put her in the ground!” The anger spilled out of her. “Even when she began to lose them, you didn’t stop asking it of her. Just had her under you until the birthing killed her.”

Her father stood, slamming the bowls from her hand. The stoneware fell to the floor, shattering. “I loved your mother! We laid together in love every time!”

“And I don’t love Cadog! Or any man. And I never will.” Gwynog clenched her fists. “And if you had any love for me, you’d send him away and let me live a prayerful life, as I asked.”

“I’m still your father!”

“And I’m a grown woman.” Gwynog turned and strode away from him toward the door.

“Where are you going?”

“Church.”

***

The walk from her father’s holding to the church wasn't short, even taking the paths that mostly let her cut through the woods and avoid others. Like a deer, Hywel had said once, watching her run through the forest. This time, she stopped at the little waterfall in the foothills to wash the tears from her face. She wouldn’t marry. She wouldn’t. The idea of laying with a man, or even another woman. Anyone. It made her flesh crawl. 

By the time she reached the little valley approaching the little church on it’s hill, her anger drained away. She loved her father. She did. And she understood he feared for her when he passed, without a home and hearth of her own. But surely, he couldn’t imagine Branui and Hywel would see her turned away from their hearths. She got along well with Angharad and Meraud, their wives. No one would let her starve.

“Gwynog!”

She stopped, turning to find her father’s guest crossing the valley toward her. Her stomach soured.

“Cadog. What are you doing here?”

“You know I went for a walk. Fancy meeting you here.” The big man stopped, a step too close for polite distance. He towered nearly a head over her, broad and solidly built. His black hair winked in the sun, and Gwyn could just make out a fleck or two of porridge still caught in his beard from breaking their fast that morning. 

“I have great devotion to the church,” Gwynog said, taking a small step back. “A vocation for it.”

“Your father said you thought so.” His blue eyes considered hers and she fought the urge to step back again. “But women cannot be priests of the one God, can they?”

“The one God? Are you not a follower of Christ, Cadog?” How had her father thought she’d accept this man?

“I have converted but recently. There is as yet no church near my holdings.”

“Well, I shall pray one comes to serve your needs soon. Excuse me.” She stepped away.

His hand shot out, catching her arm in a fierce grip. “Or perhaps what I need is a God fearing wife to guide my household.”

“Please let me go.” Gwynog kept her voice firm, even as a winter chill slid through her veins. “I didn’t give you permission to touch me.”

“Ah, but your father wills the match.”

The knife she kept on her at home at Hywel’s instance lay sitting near the hearth. She wore little more than a shift and over gown, belted and pinned with brooches, hosen and garters and boots. 

If she screamed, would Father Pyr hear her? Would he do anything if he did?

“Tell me,” Cadog said, tugging her closer, “do you know the old ways? When a man would take his bride and then pay the family after?”

Gwynog’s free hand rose before she thought, fingers curled as she raked her nails across Cadog’s face. “Release me at once, your whoreson bastard.”

He shook her. “You’ll learn obedience in time, Gwynog dear.”

“Will I?” She spat at him. “Or will I make your life a living misery? I’ll never be willing in your bed, Cadog. I’ll fight, bite, and claw and make it as miserable for you as me if you do this. And I’ll do what it takes to be sure I never bear you a child.”

The hand around her throat cut off her words and lifted her off her feet. Gwynog gagged, lungs burning as she gasped uselessly for air. 

“I’ve broken fiercer mares than you, girl.”

Black spots spun in her vision. Hauling back her leg, she kicked forward as hard as she could.

Cadog roared, dropping her. “You little bitch.”

Gwynog scrambled, getting to her feet to run, but the man was faster. 

It didn’t hurt, exactly, when the dagger slid into her chest. It struck true, a sudden sharp pressure, a bright flash of something exquisite.

Oh. Oh, so she would be a martyr to her virginity. 

“Let your God have you, then.” 

Her knees buckled.

“Gwynog!” Her father? 

She looked up. Holy Mary, Mother of God, stood there, a sad, soft smile on her face. To her right, Gwynog saw someone else. Someone older, a shape and form that wavered as her vision grew dim.

“Gwynog!”

She slumped to the ground, the grass soft and welcoming and cool. So cool. Everything was so cool. 

God is in every growing thing, her mother had said. 

Gwynog closed her eyes and let go.

***

Absence, like something ripped away. And then in its place, a pressure flooded in, filling her lungs with so much air she gasped and jerked. 

Someone beside her screamed.

Gwynog forced her eyes open. Father Pyr knelt over her, a bloody dagger clutched in his quivering, mouse-like hands. He’d gone white as ash.

“Father Pyr, are you all right?”

The man sketched the sign of the cross at her and held out his wooden crucifix, muttering in Latin.

“Gwynog?”

She turned to find her own father staring at her wide eyed. “Father?”

“How? How are you…?

Gwynog blinked, then looked down at herself. Blood soaked her gown around the hole rent over her heart. Looking back up and forward, she blinked, catching one last glimpse of the Holy Mother before she faded from sight.

“I...I think there’s been a miracle.”


	4. Forgiveness (Can You Imagine?)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set during the events in WHAT THE WATER GAVE US, while everyone is still in Wales, Gwyn takes Nile up to see the "bullshit stained glass" and has a talk about forgiveness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from lyrics in Quiet Uptown, from HAMILTON

“Okay, I know Joe and Nicky told me that it looked nothing like you, but damn.” Nile whistled as she stared up at what she’d been calling ‘the bullshit stained glass.’ “I mean, it’s beautiful. Amazing example of it’s time. But I didn’t think you could whitewash white people.”

Gwyn snorted. Mercifully, the sanctuary was empty today. “I never thought of it like that. While that coloring isn’t traditionally Welsh, it fell in with what was popular at the time, and they’d have had to bring in craftsmen to do this.” Then she nodded toward the blondish, blue-eyed Jesus on the cross at the front. “Now you want to talk whitewashing.”

“Don’t get me started. Nicky may look like a Renaissance angel, but I imagine Canon Jesus, not Fanon Jesus, looks a lot more like Joe.”

“He does when I see him.”

Nile went quiet for a minute, then sighed. “I’m sorry, that’s still weird.”

Gwyn shrugged and dropped into one of the nearby pews. “There are days now, almost fifteen hundred years on, that it’s still weird for me.”

She budged over as Nile came to sit beside her. “You didn’t bring me here just to show me the stained glass, did you?”

“That’s up to you.” Gwyn rested easily on the pew, as at home in it as she was on her couch or at the massive farmhouse table back at the croft. “You seemed upset earlier when  Quỳnh said I forgave her. I’m here if you want to talk about that. Or if you don’t, that’s fine too.”

“It’s always fine with you, isn’t it?” Nile snapped. “No matter what. Booker fucked up? Fine. Quỳnh literally tries to destroy you. Fine. I know you know how to be not fine, Gwyn. You told me so. So why is all of this fine?”

Gwyn sighed softly. “Shall we start with Booker?”

“What?”

“You brought up Booker. Do you want to start there?” Gwyn turned a little to face her, and suddenly, Nile felt young. Like, back in church with one of her honorary Aunties young. “Because from what I understood, your vote was to accept his apology and move on.”

“It was.”

“Has that changed?”

“No.” Nile paused. “Maybe. Shit.”

“It’s complicated. What he did hurt the others. And it hurt you.”

“He didn’t hurt me,” Nile argued, but the moment the words were out of her mouth, she tasted the lie they were. “He didn’t set out to hurt me. I was…”

“Collateral damage. Which it took some time to probably realize.”

“Yeah.”

“He fucked up, Nile.” Gwyn’s casual swear in a house of God made Nile choke a little. “I’m not saying he didn’t. I’m not saying that in the moment, when I saw his dreams and yours and realized what happened, I wasn’t infuriated at him. I was.”

“He’s living with you on your farm though. After we turned him out.”

“He is. Because from the first I dreamed of him after all of you walked away, I saw that he knew he’d fucked up. Badly. But he didn’t know how to dig out of that pit.” Gwyn reached up, pushing her weirdly growing out hair out of her face. “My hurt was least, so why shouldn’t I be the first to set it aside?”

“Just like that?”

“I think you know it wasn’t instant.”

It hadn’t been. There were months between Merrick and Gwyn showing up in Nile’s dreams. 

“And Quỳnh? Out of all of us, she hurt you the worst.”

“Did she? I suffered pain, Nile, but it was in this weird, liminal dream space.” Gwyn shrugged. “I thought I’d died, honestly. And that the afterlife kind of sucked.”

Nile barked out a laugh. “What?”

“I wasn’t healing, not really. So it was like being in a dream the whole time, mostly pleasant, and then getting a wretched shock of pain every few minutes.”

“Were you with…” Nile paused, waving a hand to the front, “you know?”

“Mmmhmm.” Gwyn smiled. “It wasn’t all awful for me. From what I can see, what you all went through- trying to find me, trying to find Quỳnh. That was worse.”

“She killed you.”

“I goaded her into it.” Gwyn shook her head. “And I knew, once you told me she lived, that there’d be a chance she’d come back...wrong. Mad. What she suffered down there isn’t something I can imagine, Nile.”

“I can.”

“Then imagine it endlessly for lifetimes.”

Nile flinched. 

“I’m not trying to be hateful. Again, her pain and her rage didn’t justify her actions.” Gwyn closed her eyes for a moment, bowing her head. “I just thank God I was there. That it wasn’t Nico...Nicky.”

“So you can just let go of it? The pain she caused. The anger?”

Gwyn looked up. “I never said that. About either of them.”

“What?” Nile stared at her. “Then how? How can you have them in your house? In your life?”

“The same way that I can forgive the thousand shitty things Andromache has said to me in anger over the years. And I can forgive Nico for following false prophets into an unholy war. And I can forgive Yusuf his cold vengeance.” Gwyn reached into her pocket, pulling out a string of beads. “Did your church teach the Our Father?”

“Sure.” Nile shrugged. “We knew it, but it wasn’t a central thing.”

“Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.” Gwyn’s eyes left Nile’s, going instead to the altar and it’s far too pale Christ. “God doesn’t ask us to forgive because it’s easy, Nile. Carrying grudges is easy. It's so easy. But the weight wears us down eventually, in the end. And we have to carry them so much longer than normal. So I get on my knees and I beg for help to lay down the burdens of those grudges. To forgive. Because I never want to do what I did in Paris. Never again.”

“Is that the only time you’ve killed?” Nile asked, her voice dropping to a whisper.

“No. But it’s the only time I chose to do it outside of an immediate threat to the safety of others. And it felt good for the first day. So damn good.” The beads moved through her fingers in an unconscious motion. One that spoke of muscle memory. “And then I slept on it. I haven’t slept well since.”

“I’m not sure I’m there yet. Forgiveness.”

“There is a season for everything, Nile. You’ll get there in your own time. But for now, just be open to the idea.” Gwyn stretched and stood up. “Now, let’s get back down to the croft before the others burn it down. I was thinking I might make Italian Beef sandwiches for supper.”

Nile’s eyes widened. “Could you?”

“I happen to have a very good recipe.” Gwyn wrapped her arm around her younger sister’s shoulders and led her back toward the door and the car park.


	5. Thanks for the Memory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes, the best things happen while you're dancing...
> 
> Or Gwyn makes a friend in the 1930s in Los Angeles just before shipping out for the Philippines.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter title comes from a song title comes from an old duet between Bob Hope and Shirley Ross.

1938

For all it had been used as a means of courting for hundreds of years, Gwyn always loved to dance. To spin and twirl, gavotte and skip. To feel the music pound through her and trust a partner to carry her through. Even if just for a song.

These days, dancing carried less expectations. A girl could take a turn or two, or even three with the same fella, and no one assumed you were next to the altar. But she made her intentions perfectly plain with each new partner who approached her at this crowded club.

“I’m only here to dance.”

“I’m just in town for tonight, not looking for company.”

“Happy to take a turn on the floor, but not looking for more.”

Either they smiled, took her hand, and pulled her up to dance, or they excused themselves.

And then he asked her.

Now, some might have assumed that having no interest in sex made Gwyn immune to human beauty. Unaware of it. But she wasn’t blind. The man who strolled up to her now, he was beautiful. Shiny dark hair slick with pomade. Soft olive skin. Bright green eyes. Tall without towering, broad in just the right places. 

“I’m Alex.”

“Gretchen.”

“Dance with me?”

“I only dance. Still interested?”

“In only dancing with the prettiest girl in the room?” He held out his hand. “Any man would be a fool not to be.”

The first song rang smooth, letting them take each other’s measure. Alex held her gaze with a smile, held her just the right way to be close but not presumptuous. He kept up simple running small talk about Los Angeles- the weather, the baseball team, the beach- and kept his toes off hers.

“How am I doing?” he asked, bringing her up from a dip as the song ended. “Do I merit another go around?”

“Do you want one?” Usually partners kissed her hand after one and dropped her back at her seat.

“It would be my genuine pleasure.” 

A faster beat. Less talking, more complicated moves. A slightly firmer pressure at her back to signal his lead, but not offensive. Comforting. Kind. Spinning out and back in made her laugh, and his eyes sparkled with delight. A throw executed perfectly left her breathless. 

They clapped as the song ended and the band announced a short break.

“Buy you a drink?” Alex asked her. 

Gwyn eyed him. “I really was serious when I said I only dance. I hope you weren’t thinking you’d change my mind.”

He leaned in, close enough to whisper but at a respectful distance. “I only dance too.”

Gwyn blinked. “Oh.” She smiled. “In that case.”

Over a pair of manhattans, the two of them swapped life stories. Or rather, she learned Alex’s, and she told Alex a pretty enough tale. 

“My father hated the idea of art school, but my other supported it. And now I work for Disney, doing paint work for animation.”

“Do you like it?”

“It’s challenging enough, and it pays me well enough the papa has seen it as a real career.” He paused and flushed slightly. “I mean…”

“Is Alex short for Alejandro?” she asked, softly.

“Is it a problem if it is?”

“Not to me. It’s a beautiful name.” She smiled warmly. “I knew an Alejandro once in Madrid. He owned the most charming bookstore.”

“When could you have been in Madrid. There’s been war on there the last few years?”

Gwyn kicked herself. Stupid. “My family visited back in the early 1930s. I was just a young girl.”

“And a girl from a family that vacations in Europe is running off to be an Army nurse?”

“You aren’t the only one defying your father’s ideas of what’s proper.” She smiled at him, then glanced at the stage. “Band’s coming back.”

“Can I ask you something, before we dance again?”

Gwyn turned and found Alex biting his full bottom lip, a look of nerves written across his face. “I’m listening.”

“It’s just...you’re a beautiful woman, Gretchen.”

Oh, hell. So much for I’m also only dancing.

“And this might sound very forward.”

“Alex…”

“But would you model for me?”

That...was not what she was expecting. “Excuse me?”

“I have this piece I’m doing. On my own time. Around Hades and Persephone, but with a sort of...flipped power dynamic.” He shrugged. “It’s hard to explain. I have an old friend who modeled for me for Hades, but I’ve had trouble finding someone right for Persephone. We use a lot of girls as references at work, but they’re aspiring actresses, and the look these days is still waiflike.”

“Are you asking me to model nude?”

“No! No, you’d have sort of a woman’s toga thing.”

“I see.”

“It’s just...with your curls and your fuller curves, you look right.” He shrugged. “But it’s probably too much.”

“The band’s back.”

They launched into Bie Mir Bist Du Schon and Gwyn cringed. As cute as the lyrics were, she knew better than anyone what was going on in Germany these days, and it didn’t feel cute. 

“Gretchen.”

“It’s Friday.”

“Yes.”

“I report for duty Monday at 8AM.” She picked up her purse. “I hate this song. If we leave now, that gives you about forty-eight hours with me before I have to go.”

“Seriously?”

“In or out, Alejandro. I’m saying yes.”

“Yes.” He stood up quickly. “Let’s go.”

***

“You’ve never modeled before?” he asked, sitting at an easel. “Are you sure?”

Gwyn stood unmoving, one hand held out with a fake pomegranate in it, the other held up as if she were licking her fingers. The flowing white chiton draped off of her, and her hair was piled in messy curls on her head. 

“Not in this lifetime,” she replied. She’d sat for Yusuf more than once, and for a couple of Renaissance artists. And there’d been a few others, in the intervening years. 

“Do you need a break? A drink? Bathroom?” He glanced at the clock. “It’s been two hours.”

“Can we take fifteen?”

“Sure.” He came and took the pomegranate from her, setting it aside. “Thank you, again.”

“It’s not every day a man tells you that you look like a goddess and doesn’t expect to sleep with you.” 

He laughed. “Yeah, well, you do.” He pointed down the hall. “Bathroom's on the right.”

After she finished, she came back out to a snack of fresh fruit and a glass of lemonade. “Perfect.”

“So, can I ask,” he said, leaning against the breakfast bar as she ate. “When you say just dancing, is that for permanent?”

“Yes. I like to dance. I like friendly hugs. That’s it. No other interest. I plan to be a confirmed spinster.” She took a sip of her drink. “You?”

“I find that if I get to know someone well enough, feel close to them, I can develop an interest. But it takes a lot of time and a lot of honesty, and it’s not what people seem to want these days.” He shrugged. “So, you know. I go dancing, and sometimes meet interesting women, and get to paint them.”

Gwyn held up her glass, clinking his. “To dancing.”

“To dancing. And muses.”

***

2025

The auctioneer waved in the next lot. “Ladies and gentlemen, we have a painting by a fairly unknown Chicano artist, Alejandro Ruiz. Mr. Ruiz was born in what became Chula Vista, California in 1907, the son of immigrant parents. He was educated at the University of Southern California, receiving a full ride scholarship. Mr. Ruiz worked professionally as a colorist for Disney animation studios after his graduation, while producing his own work on the side. With the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Mr. Ruiz enlisted, and tragically was killed in action at Iwo Jima in 1944. Only a handful of his work, including his war journals survive, most of it in private hands or in the collection of USC. 

“This piece, considered one of his master works, is entitled _Persephone Unbound_. In oil on canvas, it features a Hades, kneeling subservient at the feet of his wife Persephone with hands outstretched. In her right hand, she holds the fabled pomegranate. Her left is raised to her lips, where she licks the viscerally red juice from her own fingers. A truly evocative image and an interesting take on the myth. Intriguingly, we have the identity of the male model as one Henry Fisher, an art school classmate of Mr. Ruiz. But the female model is unknown, identified on the back of the canvas in faint pencil only as ‘G’.” He paused. “We’ll start the bidding at $10,000.”

Booker glanced at Gwyn.

“Whatever it takes,” she whispered.

Booker nodded and raised his paddle.


	6. Connected Like A Family

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ioan brings his girlfriend home to meet the family. Gwyn makes her more than welcome.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Discussions of rejection of queer young people by birth families. But with love given my families of choice.
> 
> Title is from the lyrics of The Minnow & The Trout by Alison Sudol.

The phone rings while Gwyn’s drives down the Trans-Canada Highway, somewhere in the middle of Saskatchewan. At three in the morning. In the back seat of the nondescript Subaru, her passengers make disgruntled, sleepy noises.

“It’s okay,” she whispers to them. Then she activates her Bluetooth. The phone’s a burner, and if a call is coming in, it’s probably important. “Hello?”

“Mum?”

Her heart warms. Ioan. He’d called her Gwyn for the first year he’d lived with her, until just before the first Pride she’d taken him too, when he’d quietly asked her if she’d mind. Before, Mum had been a code for danger. But, he’d told her, she’d become his Mum in every way that mattered. And so she had been, from that day on.

“Hello, my love.”

“Is this a bad time? You sound tired.”

“I’m away at the moment. Time difference. But it’s all right, I’m always pleased to hear your voice.” She keeps her eyes on the dark and lonely road. There’s a cabin waiting for her and her charges in Moosejaw, and she can sleep the day out there before they drive on tomorrow night. “What’s the news?”

“I was calling about the term break.”

“I haven’t fucked that up, have I? It’s not until the middle of next month?” Ioan had gotten into the Veterinary program at Cambridge, his first choice. Now in his third year, you’d think Gwyn would be used to UK term breaks versus American ones. Especially with Nile doing graduate work at St. Andrews and often coming down to spend holidays with them half the time. 

“Yeah, it’s then. Through the middle of April.” Ioan pauses, and over the line, the distinctive hiss of a fidget spinner device rattles. “I wondered if I might bring someone home with me?”

“A friend? Or…”

“Or.”

“Oh.” There’s a ridiculous bubbling giddiness that rises up in her chest at the idea. “Of course you may. What are their pronouns?”

“She/her.” Ioan laughs. “Her name is Evain.”

“And she’s studying?”

“Land Economy.” Ioan sighs, a happy bright sound and Gwyn’s chest wants to just explode. “She’s brilliant, Mum. And funny. I really fancy her.”

“I’m excited to meet her. Will she be coming for part or all of the break?”

“All.”

“And her family don’t mind.”

There’s a long pause on the other end. Then Ioan answers flatly. “No.”

Oh. Oh, these darling, precious children. “Well then, we’ll be sure to make her welcome. I’m not sure if Auntie Nile is coming down but I’ll check. How much family do you want coming around?”

“You and Uncle Seb for sure. And Auntie Nile, if she’s coming. Anyone else is fine.” Ioan pauses again, and when he speaks, it’s with the same soft awe she first heard in the sterile room of a homeless shelter all those years ago. “Thank you, Mum. For, you know…”

“You are the light of my life, Ioan. I adore you.”

“I know. I love you too. I’ve got to go, I’ve a lecture.”

“Send me food preferences and such. We’ll make this special.”

“Okay. Bye mum.”

“Bye, my heart.”

He hangs up, and her heart seizes again. Behind her two teenage girls, whose families were going to put them onto planes for arranged marriages in other countries against their wills before the group that Gwyn’s working with got them out, snuffle in their sleep, and she wishes again that she had room and space enough for every child who needed her always. Instead, she’ll save who she can.

That will be enough.

***

She staggers out of Arrivals at Cardiff Airport, she’s beyond grateful to find  Sébastien waiting for her, sitting on a bench with a paperback book. “Merci beau coupe,” she mutters, flopping next to him and landing half in his lap.

Sébastien laughs, putting a bookmark to hold his place and then mussing her hair like an oversized housecat. “I missed you too, ma soeur. How was Canada?”

Exhausting. Nerve-wracking. Endless. “Effective,” she settles on. She delivered her charges into the care of the next contact, the best she could do. “How’s the croft?”

“Fine. No fires. No issues with any of the animals. All quiet.”

He nudges her up and takes her bags, leading her out to the rover. She’s asleep before they get out of parking.

She wakes when they turn onto the drive for the croft, jolting up in her seat. “Sorry. Jet-lag.”

“Twenty-five hours on planes will do that.” He hops out, opens the gate and drives them through, then hops out again to close it. 

“Ioan called while I was away. He’s coming home for the break next month.”

Sébastien’s smile goes soft and fond. “Good. I’ve missed him. I’d hoped he hadn’t made better plans.”

Gwyn bit her lip for a moment. “He’s bringing someone with him. A girl he fancies. So she can meet the family.”

“You?”

“And you. He asked for the two of us specifically.”

Sébastien is quiet for a long moment, then softly whispers, “Oh.”

“You know he loves you, mon frère. You mean the world to him too.”

He hums, a sad soft noise. “I know. It’s just...There are days I still struggle to feel like I deserve it.”

“Ioan’s more than either of us deserve. How blessed are we?” 

That startles a laugh out of him as he drives the rest of the way up to the main house.   
***

Nile gets home two days before Ioan does. “Does she need my room? I can double with you if I need to.” 

Gwyn shrugs. “I told Ioan they could figure it out when they get here. Worst case, I’ll make Ioan crash on the sleeper sofa downstairs, since she’s his guest.” She hugs Nile. “That's as much your room these days as anyone’s.”

“I’ll need it less after this last term though. I’ll finish the degree at the end of it.”

“You’re still always welcome, as long as it’s my house.”

When Ioan arrives in the early evening two days later, his own Rover coming up the drive, it’s with a lovely young woman in the front seat. Where Ioan is all startling red hair and hazel green eyes, she’s long dark curls and eyes the color of angry seas. She hangs back just a little as they come up to the house, taking it all in.

“Good evening, Ms. Morgan,” she offers politely once Ioan’s made an introduction, hand outstretched. “Thank you for welcoming me into your home.”

Gwyn blinks at her. “Evain.”

“Yes, Ms. Morgan.”

“Is hugging you okay?”

The girl’s hand drops. “Ms. Morgan?”

“You are very welcome to call me Gwyn. We’re quite informal. And I’m so incredibly thrilled you’re here. I’d like to hug you, but if that’s not alright, a handshake is fine. Or if you don’t enjoy touching, that’s alright too. Our home is your home, and I want nothing more for you than to be comfortable.”

“Oh.” Evain looks her up and down again. “I...I would love a hug. Thanks.”

Gwyn gathers the girl close and hugs her tight, one hand on the back of her head. “Welcome, Evain.”

“Thank you.” It’s a whisper, just a hint of a waver on the end.

“Mum, let us get settled before you ruin her emotionally for other people,” Ioan calls out, and both women laugh.

“Fair. Go unpack. Auntie Nile and I’ll finish dinner, and I’ll get Uncle  Sébastien from his cottage.”

Nile offered to handle the bulk of dinner, in the mood for some of her mom’s old favorites. She’d spent the afternoon showing Gwyn her mom’s great aunt’s recipe for spicy chicken and her grandmother’s recipe for macaroni and cheese, and then they’d googled to find a good approximation for remembered slow cooked green beans with bacon and onion. Gwyn had made dinner rolls and baked spice cake.

Nile goes out to fetch Sébastien while Gwyn hollers upstairs, “Dinner, kids!”

Gwyn sits at the head of the table, Sébastien and Nile to her left and Ioan and Evain to her right. She bows her head with Nile in a quick, silent grace before they start passing food around.

“So Evain,” Nile starts, “Gwyn said you’re studying land management. What exactly is that?”

“Well, most people who study it plan to work as stewards on large estates,” Evain starts, before launching into her hopes to work with heritage conservancies and environmental groups instead. She’s passionate and interesting, and Ioan’s eyes rarely leave her face, a soft smile on his lips.

She then asks Nile about her masters, and then after Sébastien’s art, and about the farm. It takes them through until dessert, when Ioan suddenly notice’s Sébastien’s fingernails. 

“Uncle Seb! For me?”

Sébastien wiggles the rainbow metallic manicure at him, expertly applied these days. “I felt like celebrating your homecoming.”

Ioan turns, sharing the story of his first Pride with Evain, and she’s still smiling, but there’s something else in her eyes. A lingering hurt.

After they finish the meal, she looks at the room. “Sébastien, Ioan, can you two handle the dishes? I thought Evain might like to pick the movie since she’s the guest.”

“I’ll work on drinks,” Nile offers.

Evain follows her through to the living room, waiting while Gwyn cues up the Netflix account and then hands her the remote. They’re silent for a long minute. Then Evain whispers, “He’s so lucky. To have you.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” Gwyn offers.

Evain takes a long, shuddering breath, then sets the remote down. “I think I always knew it would go badly, if my parents found out. They were always so...I hate saying bigoted, but that’s it, isn’t it? That’s the word.” Tears fall and she wipes her eyes. “When my mum came up to surprise me my first year at uni and caught me kissing a girl I was seeing, she just...she freaked out. Said all these awful, hateful things to me, and Claire. And then she stormed out and I’ve not heard from the since, except a text telling me not to come home.”

“Oh, sweetheart.” Gwyn opens her arms, and Evain just folds into her, crying quietly into her shirt. “I’m so sorry the world hasn’t been kinder.”

“I know I’m not alone. I mean, Ioan and I met through the Queer campus union. He told me about what happened to him. Before you.” She shakes in Gwyn’s arms. “Part of me just always believed that it wouldn't be me, you know. That if they knew, they’d wake up. They’d still love me.”

Gwyn holds the young woman tight, stroking her hair. “Just know, it’s their failing, Evain. You are perfect as you are. You always have been, and you are worthy of love.”

Evain gives a hiccupping little sob. “I wish I’d had someone like you, then.”

“Well, I am deeply sorry I’m late, but you have me now. Ioan will tell you, loving people is sort of my superpower. And you’re now one of my people.” She helps the young woman sit up, handing her a tissue from a nearby box. “Now, raucous comedy, scary film, or weird drama?”

“Something with Regency Era yearning?” She grins. “I like the landscapes. And the hand touching as emotion.”

“Excellent choice.”

If Ioan or the others notice Evain’s red rimmed eyes when they join them, no one says anything.


	7. Only Trying to Keep the Sky From Falling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When a solo op that Gwyn takes goes sideways, the team has to step in, and Andy learns a secret Gwyn's been keeping for years.
> 
> ***  
> The one where Andy learns that Gwyn can fight...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Descriptions of the aftermath of canon-typical violence.
> 
> The title for this chapter comes from the lyrics of Saving Grace, by Everlast.

2029

“You did fucking what?” Andy shouted into the phone. Nile cringed for Copley’s hearing on the other end.

“Gwyn’s been taking on these kinds of tasks for a while now. She asked to,” their task man argued. “Usually they're low-risk. This is the first time she’s ever sent an SOS.”

“Is Booker with her?”

“No. He’s handling something else. In Caracas.” Copley sighed. “You’re closest. The tracker Manvir gave her shows she’s three hours out from you. I’m sending coordinates now.”

“You better hope she’s okay,” Andy growled, hanging up the speakerphone call. Looking up at the others, Andy sighed. “Let’s go.”

***

The coordinates led to a cabin at the end of a fire road, one that Andy hadn’t seen before. Remote as hell, no near neighbors, buried deep up in the mountains of Colorado. They pulled to a stop up the road by two jacked up, abandoned SUVs. Checking weapons, they moved silently in formation.

The first body lay on the drive, a militiaman with a kill shot right between the eyes. As they moved closer, more bodies. A second. A third. Headshot after headshot after headshot. A fourth, still clutching his modified AR-15.

The cabin itself was shot to hell, glass blown out of the windows, door hanging off its hinges. Another body lay in the doorway. Another militiaman, but this one lacked a gunshot. This one died from a deep slice across his throat, the head almost severed. Just past him, an old bolt action Moison-Nagant lay on the floor by one of the windows. 

Nicky stepped forward, picking the rifle up and checking it over. “The firing pin has failed.”

They fanned out, finding three more bodies, each cut to ribbons. Almost like… “Sword cuts?” Andy breathed. “What the hell?”

“Machete.” Gwyn stumbled out of the little side kitchen, the weapon in question in loose her right hand and dripping gore. Bits of metal pushed out of her skin, thunking against the cabin’s wood floor. Blood soaked her from head to toe, matting her hair and streaking her face and clothing. “Less range, but it’ll do in a pinch.”

“Holy shit,” muttered Nile, blinking. 

“The girls?” asked Joe.

“They’re in the dugout underneath the floor. I haven’t checked yet. Wanted to wait until I was…” She stopped, spitting another bullet up like a smoker hacking up phlegm. “I need to clean up first.”

Andy counted the bodies. Eight men. Eight on one. She looked back up at Gwyn as Quỳnh led her to the bathroom and Nile found the trap door to the dugout. Nile’s quiet voice, soft and reassuring, drifted up as she spoke to the young women Gwyn had been helping run from a violent, white supremacist militia they’d gotten sucked into. It was drowned out by the sound of the shower.

“What are we doing with the bodies?” Nicky asked, looking around. 

“That’s your question?” Andy shook her head. “Not how there are bodies, but what we’re doing with them?”

Nicky and Joe exchanged a long glance, and suddenly Andy knew. 

“How long?”

“Boss?” Joe replied.

“How long have you known she could do this?”

“This specifically? Today.” Andy’s face must have cried murder, because Joe cringed a little. “Since the Borgia pope and the Sforza duke.”

“And you just kept it a secret? You didn’t think it was important information?” Andy fought the urge to punch her now mortal fist through the cabin’s shot up wall. 

“I asked them to.” Gwyn stepped out of the bathroom, her hair wet and tied back in a braid, her clothes changed for a dark hoodie and yoga pants. “We need to get the girls out and get gone. If these…” she trailed off into ancient Cymru for a moment. “If they don’t check back in soon, more will be coming.”

“We’re not done talking about this.” Andy looked around. “Bodies in here, then burn it?”

“Can’t. Fire season. Bodies in here, then shut it and leave it.”

It took less than fifteen minutes for Nile and Quỳnh to get the three girls out and loaded into their SUV, while the rest of them move bodies. Gwyn remained silent, but her lips moved with each one that she and Nicky placed in the line. When they finished, she stood with her head bowed, eyes closed. She mouthed words for a minute more, her fingers running over a knotted bracelet on her wrist.

Nicky squeezed her shoulder as he headed out.

“Your truck’s okay,” Joe called, tossing Gwyn the keys. “No tire damage, and the engine’s fine.”

“They assumed they’d kill us before we could get out to it,” Gwyn said, her tone flat.

“Joe, you drive the follow car. Gwyn and I will lead. Have Nile call Copley and rearrange the rendezvous.”

“Yes, Boss.”

Gwyn sighed as she climbed into the old model Hyundai Santa Fe. When Andy slammed her door, she fired up the engine, then reversed out from behind the cabin and headed down the fire road.

“You asked them to keep it a secret.”

“I did.” Gwyn’s hands gripped the steering wheel, clenched tight and white knuckled. “They argued with me about it. More than once, if it’s a consolation.”

“Less than you’d think.” Andy ran a hand through her short hair as Gwyn kept driving. “Why?”

“Why did I ask them? Or why did I keep it a secret?”

“Why wouldn’t you tell me you could fight like that.”

“Because you’d have demanded I become a warrior, Andromache.”

“No, I wouldn’t…” She stopped. “I tried to, though, didn’t I?”

“You did. You’d barely met me when you and Quỳnh pushed to train me and make me a warrior.” Gwyn shook her head. “Ability to fight like this doesn’t mean I have the heart for it. Not like you and the others. It would shatter me.”

“You think it’s easy for us?” Andy stiffened. “That we like killing?”

“No. Not at all. But I think you know how to carry the weight.” Gwyn’s fingers unclenched, tapping at the wheel instead. “You know how I was after Paris. And you assumed, I think, it was because I’d never killed. Or maybe only once.”

“Yes.” Andy itched for her own hands to do. A gun to clean. A knife to flip. “I had.”

“That wasn’t the first.”

“How many, then?”

“Not counting Paris, because that was something other...revenge. Not counting that?” Gwyn paused a long moment, one finger tapping. Finally, she said, “Fifteen.”

“Deaths?”

“Times.” The soft, agonized noise that escaped her wasn’t so much a sigh as a death rattled. “Dying is easy. Killing is so much harder. Other than Paris, I’ve only done it when I had to protect those who couldn’t protect themselves.”

“Was this the worst?”

“No.”

They drove on in silence for a while, Gwyn’s eyes flicking back from time to time to make sure the other SUV followed them. 

Finally, Andromache sighed. “When you said, we learned to carry the weight?”

“I won’t sleep. Not tonight. Maybe not for a few weeks. I’ll lie there and I’ll wonder who each of them was. Did they have a lover? A child? A parent who still loved them?” The tapping came faster, harder. “I’ll imagine their grief, their loss. Their mourning. And even though I know I did the right thing, even though I know in my heart that if I hadn’t killed every last one of them, they’d have killed those girls behind us, I’m going to mourn the lives that could have been if there had been other choices.”

“They were racist shitheads.”

“They were.” Gwyn’s hands stilled on the wheel. “But the day we lose the capacity to change is the day we die. I took that today. From eight men who might have found a way back. Sometimes the absolute right choice still shatters my heart. That’s why I made Nico and Yusuf promise me all those years ago.”

Andy sat with that as they drove, light fading into twilight, the fire road becoming a country road, becoming a frontage road and then a highway.

Eventually, they made it to the little air strip Copley had sent coordinates too, handing off the girls to a team who would get them safely out of the state and into new lives. Gwyn hugged each girl tightly, whispering words of comfort and encouragement before stepping away and watching them board the small airplane.

When it had flown off into the dark, Andy approached her again. “Give me your keys.”

“Why?”

“We have a safe place to stay in Cheyenne tonight. You’re coming with us.” Andy held out her hand. “And you’re exhausted, so I’m driving.”

Gwyn opened her mouth to argue, then sighed and simply handed over the keys. “Can we stop for food before we get on the road? I’m starving.”

Burgers and fries and drinks later, Gwyn rode silently beside Andy, her eyes on the sky outside her window.

“I’m sorry,” Andy said after a while. “That you didn’t feel you could be honest with me.”

Gwyn half shrugged. “I’m sorry I didn’t listen to Nicky and Joe. They told me to give you more credit.”

“You may have been right back then. But things do change. The weight is harder to bear than you might think.”

Gwyn looked over at her. “You know I’m here, if you ever want to talk.”

“I know. And I’m here for you.”

Gwyn’s hand reached out, resting on Andy’s arm and squeezing gently. “Thank you.”

“So...just what can you do?”

“That’s a long story.”

“We’ve got time.”


	8. Time Has A Funny Kind of Violence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gwyn faces her grief and the consequences of loving mortals at Ioan's funeral.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: References previous character death of Andy, deaths of other OCs in this series.
> 
> Title is from the Lyrics to Good Grief, by Dessa.
> 
> The quoted poem is W.H. Auden's Funeral Blues.

2057

There’s no room at the graveyard. No room at the inn, Gwyn thinks, more than a little hysterically from the fifth row back in the church that bears her name. There’s no minister today, the space deconsecrated almost a decade back. Slipping attendance and budget cuts. The faithful few drive to Fishguard or Pembroke now. St. Gwenog’s remains a heritage site and museum, and today, rented for a private service. 

Evain refused to put on black this morning. Not for Ioan. Not today. She stands up at the front in a soft purple dress, her hair streaked with a grey that Gwyn’s own will never have without chemical intervention. She holds papers in her shaking hands, but her voice rings clear through the sanctuary, full to overflowing.

“ _ Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, _

_ Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone, _

_ Silence the pianos and with muffled drum _

_ Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.” _

Sébastien sits beside her, his hand clenching hers. His eyes leak tears, but Gwyn can’t cry. Not anymore. The night Ioan...the night he left them, she slipped out of bed and climbed the hill back behind the croft. And there she sat, sobbing until tears wouldn’t come anymore. Now she hands her little brother tissue, and keeps her eyes on her darling daughter-in-law. On her grandchildren.

_ “ _ _ Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead _

_ Scribbling on the sky the message ‘He is Dead’. _

_ Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves, _

_ Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.” _

The others are here. Not sitting together. Ioan's family may know the secret, but there are others who might remember Nile from her stays during her studies at St. Andrews. She sits with an aged James Copley just behind the family, pretending to be his granddaughter. Who might see through Gwyn’s dyed red hair and  Sébastien’s dyed black, their fake glasses. Joe and Nicky are a few rows behind her and at the far edge of the aisle. And  Quỳnh, her own grief still so fresh, haunts the back corner of the sanctuary, ready to slip out the door.

_ “He was my North, my South, my East and West, _

_ My working week and my Sunday rest, _

_ My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song; _

_ I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.” _

Andromache, lost in a forest in Belarus five years ago. Barely a year after that, Gwyn’d sat beside Bargitta in Boston as Manvir slipped away from them. Then stayed when Bargitta had followed after him less than seven months later. Looking over at James, Gwyn can almost see that shadowy figure, the one who stood beside Mother Mary that day so long ago in the valley just outside. Love is never a regret, but the grief. Sweet Lord, the grief.

_ “ The stars are not wanted now; put out every one, _

_ Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun, _

_ Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood; _

_ For nothing now can ever come to any good.” _

Ioan will lie in the columbarium they built twenty years ago at the base of the tower, already ash, his body consigned to fire earlier in the week. Someday, when the time comes, Evain will join him. Gwyn can only watch as their eldest, Meraud, picks up the urn holding her father and carries it at the head of the procession with her mother and her brother and sister. Can only fall in with the other mourners.

After, she helps quietly at the croft. Serving food, refreshing drinks. Listening as people tell stories of Ioan, of her child. Her child. Pausing only to step out and say goodbye to James. To Nile and Nicky and Joe. Quỳnh is already long gone.

She and  Sébastien stay another three days until Evain tells her gently that she needs to be alone now. That she has to stand on her own two feet. Gwyn kisses her cheeks and promises her she will come whenever she needs her.

She goes with Sébastien back to his place in Martinique. Spends one night lying on the bed with him, holding each other like siblings in their shared grief.

In the morning, she’s gone.

The others won’t see her for a decade.


	9. My Mother's Savage Daughter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When raiders attack a religious house in the late 8th C in Dalmatia, Gwyn is forced to fight for the first time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Canon Typical Violence
> 
> Chapter Title from the song My Mother's Savage Daughter by Karen Kahan.

793 CE, Dalmatia

The religious house is small, with fewer than twenty sisters to its name, and one aged priest to see to them. They hold no great tracts of land, no fine gold fixtures, no rich trappings. They have orchards and fields and goats and a river that has a fair few fish in it. And Gwyn is quite good at extorting wealthy men who fear for their mortal souls to support the house and its mission. Well, the Reverend Mother doesn’t call it extortion. She says Jadviga, as she’s going by now, has a gift for helping men to Christian charity and good works. Their donations keep things going and let the house do their most important work.

What the house is richest in, what Gwyn finds the most joy as Sister Jadviga in, is the children. Orphans, all of them, taken in and raised until they were old enough to be placed into an apprenticeship for the boys, or helped to a decent marriage for the girls, unless they wished to stay and take the veil. Between twelve and seventeen children live in the dorms at any given time, anywhere from babies to young adolescents, and Gwyn loves them.

She loves this house, loves its rules, loves its work. It's everything she hoped for in her own foundation, the one she still prays for daily. And everything she found so lacking in the great religious houses of the west. She would easily stay here for all eternity if she could, if it wouldn’t bring ruin upon her and them. As it is, she thinks she might get ten good years. Fifteen if she’s truly fortunate and keeps her veil on at all times.

Since the day she first arrived, she’s risen to be the sister most in charge of the children. The one who, with old Father Ulfo, rides to the closest towns looking for new apprenticeships for the boys coming of age and checks on the ones they’ve placed. The one who, when men come to them seeking the possibility of a convent orphan bride, puts them in their place as to what to expect-no meek shadow they might strike as it amuses them or treat like a work animal. Not her girls. Her girls are raised to be God fearing and fierce, partners and helpmates, but they will not be given in a marriage to just any man who shows an interest, and if she hears of them being mistreated? They’ll have Sister Jadviga to answer to.

A few men laugh for a moment, but the steel of her spine and the stone in her eyes stops them, and those who think they fall a little too close to the mark usually turn tail and go hunting brides elsewhere. Because it’s known through the surrounding villages and farms, Sister Jadviga checks up on her girls, and loves them all like her own.

Father Ulfo despairs of her just a little bit sometimes, mostly in a fond way. She makes liniment for his aching knees in recompense.

She prays for ten years. She wishes for fifteen.

She gets seven.

In the autumn of her seventh year, a man called Tomislav from one of the nearby farmsteads hammers on the door of the church on early Sunday as Father Ulfo is preparing for Mass. When Sister Lada opens it, he collapses on the floor just inside the threshold, blood soaking the stones. 

“Raiders,” he gasps with his last breath. Then he’s gone.

Lada drops to her knees, praying. Gwyn gapes at her. “What are you doing?”

“Preparing my soul.”

“What about the children?” Gwyn hisses at her.

The Reverend Mother comes up the aisle, looking between them. “We are sworn to peace, Jadviga. We can offer no resistance.”

No. No, that isn’t acceptable. If it were only the sisters and Father Ulfo, then so be it. They could all kneel and pray and accept martyrdom and that would be as it would be. A choice they’d made. A choice she’d made herself. 

Thou shalt not kill.

But Hywel’s voice rings in her head, asking if she’d kneel and pray as her brother Branui’s child was struck down. Their servants. Those who’d made no such choice, but could offer no resistance. 

Gwyn takes a deep breath. “There is a crypt, under the church, yes?”

“Yes, Jadviga. Why?” Reverend Mother stares at her. “What are you thinking?”

“You need to fetch all the children. Now. Take them all down into the crypt with all the sisters. And Father Ulfo.” Gwyn takes the older woman’s hand. “Bar the door and pray for a miracle.”

“What are you doing, Jadviga?”

“Hopefully, Reverend Mother, a miracle.”

***

“But Sister Jadviga, I want to be with you!”

She kneels down and wraps her arms tight around little Iljko. “I know, little love. I know. It’s just for a little while. Do you remember what I taught you. When we walk through the valley?”

“We fear no evil.”

“Good. Can you help lead the other children in practicing that prayer for me? Quietly as you can down there with the sisters. Get Sister Marija to help you, all right?”

“Yes, Sister.”

She stands and gives him a push, the last through the door. Looking down into the crypt, lit by only a few small oil lamps, everyone huddled together, she smiles. The she pushes the door shut and listens to the bar drop on the other side.

When she’d come here those seven years ago, she’d snuck into the church the night before like a thief. She knew she’d only be allowed to bring a few small things with her, and certainly not the things she needed to hide that night. Not weapons. But she’d found over the years that there were places one could hide things in a church where no one looked. Not for years and years. 

Hurrying to the Marian altar, she reaches down, feeling for the oil cloth bag hidden between the statue and the wall. “Forgive me, Holy Mother.”

She has minutes left, maybe, before the raiders come. It took so long to get everyone into the church and down to the crypt.

The bag pulls free. Inside rests the belt with the knife Hwyel gave her, it’s sheath on a belt ready to girdle her waist. And with it, a longer sword, a skill she picked up from an old warrior in southern Germania who’d been happy for an interested student who’d also been skilled at midwifery while his oldest daughter had a difficult pregnancy. She’d left them with a healthy mother and son, and with enough skills with the sword to keep from ending herself.

Belting on the knife and taking the sword, she strides across the sanctuary and out the door.

As if she summoned them by stepping into the light, the raiders appear. Six men on horses, carrying with them the smell of iron and death. In the distance, a plume of smoke rises from one of the nearby farms. At least one of her girls had married a farmer that direction. 

Rage, dark and seething, coils in her gut.

When the leader of the raiders sees her, he laughs. “Hello, little sister. Come to bid us welcome?” His language isn’t a local dialect. It’s from somewhere farther north. Somewhere he expects her not to recognize. Poor fool.

“This is a holy place and holy people.” She replies in their tongue, unaccented and sharp. He blinks. “You have blackened your souls enough for one day. Go, now, and pray for forgiveness, and live.”

The leader recovers. “Or what, little sister?”

“Or you shall find out what happens when sin stained souls go to the next life.”

This time they all laugh at her, and it helps. It lights the fire under that rage inside her, the one she didn’t know she had. That she didn’t ever want to have. The one she imagines Andromache and Quỳnh carry like a banked ember in their hearts.

“Mihajlo,” the leader orders, and one of the men dismounts, carrying a wicked looking sword of his own, though haphazardly. He chuckles when Gwyn raises her blade, but the laughter dies when she launches at him, using her speed and agility to counter the fact he’s a full head taller than she is. She manages a slice across his thigh that brings him to his knees and then one across his throat. He falls, gurgling blood into the dirt.

There is no further hesitation from the raiders as two more dismount and come for her, snarling over their dead comrade. She’s never fought two men at once and while she gets lucky with one, managing a stab into his groin that has him join his friend in bleeding out into the churchyard, the second drives his blade into Gwyn’s side.

The pain is blinding for a moment, ripping in and breaking ribs, worse than her first death because it misses everything vital except her lung. Gwyn bears down on her grip on her sword and makes another clumsy swing at her assailant, wounding him before she goes down.

Death slides over her and she’s gone. Gone. Gone.

Then the air pushes back into her lungs and she’s back. As she hoped, no one has taken her sword, waiting until they’re done to pillage her corpse. She stumbles to her feet. The horses stand waiting, but at the sight of her, they shy nervously. She smells of death now, and blood, and she is no master to them.

Taking her chance, she shrieks as loud as she can, charging them just a bit, and the animals rear and jerk and then bolt, running for the road. Gwyn spins around, staggering back toward the church as she pulls her knife free. She’ll need both hands for the sword, but if she’s lucky, she can get close enough for the knife.

The man she wounded is just inside the door, leaning against the wall, and she cuts his throat quick and clean, much cleaner than her sword did the first of them. Blood sprays her face and soaks her veils as she turns, leaving her knife on the small sill of the window and carrying her sword down the aisle.

“Though I walk in the shadow of death,” she screams in the raider’s language, “I fear no evil, for my God is with me!”

The three remaining men turn. One of them shrieks. One charges, but he’s panicking and Gwyn has no cause to fear death. Nor pain. Neither are permanent.

She is death. She is God’s will in this moment. He brought her here so she might stand shield to these children, her children, and she will not fail them.

“His is the Power and the Glory,” she commands as she strikes the first man down, advancing on the leader and his last wretched minion. “Mine is his arm.”

The leader snarls at her. “Demon. Witch. Strigoia.”

He raises his blade and she hers and the fight is the hardest of the day. The longest. He wounds her, but the wounds close. She bleeds and bleeds and bleeds. He bleeds to as she scores her own wounds. None of them fatal. 

He shouts more than once at the last man, the remaining raider, but Gwyn barely hears him. Only the sound of ringing blades and her own pounding heart in her ears. 

When she slips, and his blade drives into her stomach, he thinks he’s won. His smile is red with his blood and her blood. He laughs at her. “Die, little sister.”

Her blade pierces his throat. His eyes widen in shock.

“You first, bastard.”

He does.

Gwyn sits back as the wound in her stomach heals. She pants, aching and exhausted. And with one last man. But the fire inside is almost out and she’s so very tired. And it’s all ending here. Everything she loves. Everyone she loves. She’ll have to say good-bye.

“Please.”

She looked up at the word to find the last man prostrate in front of her. 

“Please, do not kill me.”

Gwyn groans. “Why not?”

“Because I have seen God’s glory in your face and in your sword. I repent. Truly, I repent.”

She is so very, very tired.

“What is your name?”

“Mislav.”

“Mislav.” She nods. “Mislav, God’s glory is never in a sword. Nothing of today was glorious. It is in the faces of children and in the old people who tell tales of our ancestors. It is in feeding our neighbor and welcoming the stranger. It is in love and kindness and choosing peace. Were the orphans we raise not here, I would not have picked up my sword.”

He stares at her, wide eyed. “But God healed you. That is a miracle.”

“Yes. But the bigger miracle is this, Mislav. You will live today. You will go back to where you have come from, and you will tell them the miraculous story of how God put a sword in the hand of a nun and made her immortal to protect the people here. And how when you asked it, she gave you God’s mercy. And then you will pray for forgiveness for the harm you have done. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Sister. Yes.”

“I am called Sister Jadviga. If God tells me you have not done this thing, I will find you, Mislav. And I will not have mercy a second time.”

“I understand. Thank you, Sister.”

“Good. Now, help me take these bodies outside and clean up this blood.”

***

“You truly feel you cannot stay?”

Gwyn stands beside the Reverend Mother, watching Sisters Marija and Lada play with the children. And for the hundredth time, she thinks maybe she could. Another year. Perhaps two. Even if Mislav goes home and tells his story, would anyone believe him? One nun slaying five seasoned raiders?

But Father Ulfo had heard her confession and she’s seen the wariness in his eyes since. And she can no longer walk into the sanctuary without smelling the tang of iron under the beeswax of the candles and the wood oil. No matter how many times she scrubs the floors. 

Or her hands. Which now carry the blood of five men, laid in unmarked graves at the edge of their little cemetery.

Her fate was never to stay. But her heart breaks to go.

“I cannot, Mother. I feel called back into the world. I am sorry.”

“Then peace go with you, Jadviga.”

“And peace be with you, Mother.”

Peace be with the sisters, and peace be with Father Ulfo. And peace be with Gwyn’s precious children.

For now, it would be a long time before peace was with Gwyn again.


	10. Some people get religion (some people get the truth).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In their last few days in Seattle before heading to Boston, Andy and Gwyn have a heart to heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Title from Brandi Carlile's Looking Out

Unless Gwyn died publicly, shutting down a life and moving on always took time. A week, sometimes two, if she did it alone. Giving notice to a landlord if she had one. Quitting her job. Getting rid of her furniture and putting any keepsakes away into storage if she wanted them for later. Closing utility accounts. In person good-byes if she could manage it with friends, the sort that promised possible reunions but left the opportunity for that door to close. And this time, since they would be flying across the country to Boston, donating her car.

It went fast this time. Her boss and her landlord were both sorry to hear of the sudden cancer diagnosis of her great aunt back in Wales, the one who, as her only family, Gwyn felt obligated to go to and take care of. Joe and Nicky procured a truck and handled the heavy lifting, taking her furniture and home goods to a charity that helped outfit women from domestic violence situations. Gwyn had a going away party at work and one with friends from school at a bar. Nile helped her pack the clothes she wanted to take and what would go to a storage place, to be shipped later. Her car went to the local NPR affiliate. Manvir handled her banking, transferring funds to other accounts and closing these.

And then they had two days on their hands before Copley could manage a discrete transport for them. And since Nile had never been to Seattle, and it had been decades for the others, Gwyn took them around. They did the Seattle Center, going up in the Space Needle. They walked through Capitol Hill, stopping at Gwyn’s hairdresser to get her hair cut and died to a solid raven’s wing black. They ate too much in the International District, walked through Pioneer Square to the country’s smallest National Park, and then took the light rail up to Westlake so Gwyn could take them all to Pike’s Market.

“I don’t understand why they do that,” Nicky muttered, as they stood on the sidewalk watching the famous fish throwing. “Why not just pass it over the counter? Or carry it around? It’s unnecessary?”

“Because it’s amazing!” Nile took video with her phone as another fish flew through the air. “They just catch them every time!”

Gwyn steered them away from the first Starbucks and it’s forever line, taking them down to Ghost Alley Espresso instead, and then back up to sample the various other vendors. Joe ended up with a new sketchbook, Nile bought some earrings, and Nicky ended up with a bag of produce for dinner that night.

“Oh, look!” Nile said. “They have a sunset cruise of the harbor.”

Andy sighed. “It’s touristy.”

“You’re tourists, live a little,” Gwyn pointed out. “Come on.”

Nile ended up on top on the upper deck with Joe and Nicky, listening attentively to the tour guide at the rail, while Andy and Gwyn sat on the lower deck.

“Something on your mind, Andy?” Gwyn asked quietly, her fingers worrying a key chain of beads.

“What you said about that night during the American War, when you decided to leave.” Andy paused, her eyes hidden by sunglasses. “I know you said that wasn’t my fault…”

“It wasn’t. I looked at the information I had, it said I was hurting more than helping by staying, so I went. I’m an adult who made a decision, Andromache.” Gwyn shrugged. “If I stormed off every time you and I fought, we’d have no shared history to speak of.”

“I didn’t get better, after you left.”

The words were brutally honest. Gwyn bit her lip for a long moment.

“I know. At least from the point your Frenchman joined you.”

Andy cringed, just slightly. A move so microscopic, if you hadn’t known her over a thousand years, you’d never have seen it. “Booker.”

“Hmmm…”

“Did you know? That he was going to do that?” Andy’s voice stayed low. “That he was…”

“No.” If she had, if she’d had the slightest inkling, she’d have burned the world down getting to them. “I dreamed of him, all those years, but it was in bits and flashes. I honestly didn’t recognize the man he met with who set the thing up as a threat. I saw a few snippets of meetings, but I thought it was just a job.”

Andy went silent, staring out past the other tourists at the water for a long few minutes. Then, softly, she said, “That feels like my fault too.”

“It’s not.”

“How can you know that?” Andy turned to her, and even with her sunglasses in place, Gwyn felt her eyes boring into her. “You weren’t there.”

“Because he’s not a child. He made choices. Choices born out of pain, but choices nonetheless.” Gwyn shrugged. “You can’t take his agency away from him like that.”

“But I should have seen it. We should have...fuck, we all lived in each others pockets, and we missed it.”

“Except when you weren’t. When you’d split up.”

“Still.” Andy sighed. “And I didn’t exactly stop him from drinking. I basically told him we told him so about his family.”

“Do you want me to blame you, Andromache? Or would you rather blame me?”

“What?” Andy looked up sharply.

“I was in his head all those years. His dreams. I could feel enough to know he was grieving and depressed.” Gwyn laughed, but the sound rang hollow in her chest. “Shit, I could see through him you were as bad as I’d left you. Maybe worse. Especially after Australia. And you know what I didn’t do?”

“What?”

“I didn’t come back. I didn’t get on a horse, or a train, or a plane. Hell, I could even see that the last hundred years were wearing Joe and Nicky down.” Gwyn swallowed the lump in her throat. “That they were clinging to each other like survivors of a disaster, and I stayed right the fuck where I was every damn time.”

“You were dealing with your own griefs.”

“So were all of you. This life is long, Andy. We all have PTSD, I suspect. I know I do for some of what I’ve seen.” Gwyn reached out, and took her old friend’s hand. “But if you’re willing to acknowledge that it wasn't my job to come back and save Booker and the rest of you, you have to give yourself the same Grace. You aren’t a God, Andromache. No matter who worshipped you all those years ago.”

“I really fucking hate it when you’re right about shit like this.”

“I remember.”

“But you still feel the need to go to him now? To Booker?”

“He’s still one of us. And he does need help.” Gwyn took a breath. “Don’t get me wrong, I am angry about what he did. But I am still inside his dreams these days. I don’t think anyone loathes him quite as hard as he loathes himself.”

“Joe might argue with you one that.”

Gwyn laughed. “I know that little brother of mine well. Yusuf feels deeply, and he would not be half so angry if he didn’t love the man half so much.”

“Think he understands that about himself?”

“No.” Gwyn leaned back further into the unforgiving bench. “But someday, the anger is going to fade, and the love is still going to be there. And when that day comes, for him and for Nicky, Booker needs to be in a place to receive it. That’s why I need to at least try.”

Andy nodded. “Just...don’t let it take the whole hundred years. Fixing him.”

Gwyn snorted. “Even I don’t have the patience for that. I’m not a saint.”

“There’s a church in Wales that says otherwise.”

“Good PR, that.”

“Indeed. 

They both laughed and Andy pulled her hand free, throwing her arm around Gwyn’s shoulder and tugging her close. “I have missed you.”

“I missed you too, sister.”

  
  
  



	11. I tried carrying the weight of the world

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ten years after Ioan's funeral, Joe and Nicky walk into a gallery in Kemijarvi.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Avicii's Wake Me Up
> 
> Warning: Mentions past death of Andy.

2068

There’s an old fashioned brass bell above the door on the little shop here in Lappland. There’s still wide open land here, still skiing and hiking and lakes with clear water. Finland had worked hard to keep itself that way against all comers. Except tourists. Tourists are welcome, with the appropriate visas. Or very good forgeries.

“Hyvää huomenta, yksi hetki!” a voice calls from the back room, and Joe’s heart stutters. He’s missed her, even if he has no idea what she’s just said. He glances around, taking in the space. Actual print books, still produced these days, though increasingly rare, are displayed alongside beautiful handicrafts of the Sami people who have long called Lappland home and original art for sale. He glances at his moon beside him and smiles. It’s a nice shop. A nice life.

The curtain over the door to the back room moves aside and a young woman steps through. “Anteeksi odotusa…” The words trail off.

The last time they saw her, she’d worn dark grey and her hair had been red. And grief had stolen all the joy from her eyes and the color from her cheeks, and the strength in her arms when she’d hugged them good-bye.

Now she stands there frozen, her hair a rich espresso brown and her lips kissed with a raisin colored lipstick. Her sweater is ice blue and her pants are a soft slate over thick boots and what Joe assumes are nice thick socks. But her eyes blink at them, carrying centuries. Over a millennium of life and death and joy and pain.

Then she smiles softly. “Hello, little brothers,” she says softly in an ancient dialect of Zeneize, her voice soft and fond. “How did you find me?” 

Nicky strode forward, pulling her into his arms and holding on tight. “We have been so worried.”

“I have been here. There was always a way to reach me.” She stands on her toes, reaching up and stroking his hair gently, and Joe’s heart aches. They never should have left her. Not after Andy and then her Manny and his Bargitta right after. And then Ioan. They should have stayed, after the funeral, instead of trusting Gwyn to be the strong one always and forever.

“How?” Nicky croaks.

“Same Proton mail account as always.” She shrugs. “I check it three times daily, just in case. Other than turning down work from Copley’s protege and the occasional check in from Evain, letting me know how she and the children are getting on, there’s been nothing.”

“You didn’t come to Copley’s funeral.”

She steps back at the turn Nicky’s tone takes, and Joe winces. 

“No. I didn’t.”

“Why?”

Before she can answer, the door opens, the bell jingles, and her face transforms into a mask of neutral politeness. She slips back into fluent Finnish, chatting as Nicky and Joe pretend to be tourists. Pretend to browse. The woman ends up buying a few bracelets, which Gwyn wraps up for her. The woman seems to thank her, calling her Gitta as she goes.

Gwyn follows her to the door, flipping the sign from open to closed and locking the door. 

“This isn’t a conversation for interruptions,” she says, slipping back into Zeneize. “Come with me.”

The curtain leads to the back room with an office, a small storage area, and a set of stairs leading up. At the top of them, Gwyn unlocks another door and leads them into a small flat. Straight ahead is a small living and dining area with a love seat in front of systems that now function like old TVs used to, only the watcher wears glasses signaled by a flat box laying on a small banquet to enjoy the show. There’s a little four top table with a bud vase of dried flowers in the middle, a few small shelves of books, and a kitchen like something out of an old Ikea display, space saving and utterly functional.

To the right as they enter, a set of screens blocks the view of a bed, and a door opens into a small bathroom.

“Tea? Coffee?” Gwyn asks, slipping into English and tugging off her boots just past the door and setting them aside, then crossing the antique rug on the floor to the kitchen. Joe smiles to see he was right about the thick socks. He removes his shoes and waits as Nicky does the same, then walks over to the table.

“Tea would be lovely,” he offers, the first words he’s spoken since they arrived. “Thank you.”

“Where’s Nile?” she asks as she sets the kettle to boil and pulls a tin of tea down, using a scoop to fill a large tea ball with it.

“She and Book are working on a project together.”

Gwyn freezes again for just a moment, then goes back to what she’s doing without turning around, dropping the tea ball in a pot. “Is all forgiven then?”

Joe glances at Nicky who sits back in his seat. “Not officially. But we...Nicky and I, Nile and Quỳnh, we had a rough one about eighteen months ago. Decided we needed a break as a team.” Nicky lays a hand on his thigh, rubbing soft circles there. “Hernandez, Copley’s...well, the new one. He had a job, needed two people, Nile wanted to do it, so she called Book.”

“I see.” Another cabinet and she brings over three mugs to the table and sets them down, then back and forth again with a small sugar bowl. No milk though. The kettle screams, so she pauses to pour it into the pot to steep the tea, then makes a third trip with a plate of cookies before going back for the pot. 

“You didn’t come to the funeral,” Nicky says again once she’s joined them. “Why?”

Gwyn’s soft smile goes brittle like ice on the edge of a thaw. “Because James forbade it.”

“What?” Nicky blinks at her. “When?”

“At Ioan’s service. When I went out to say good-bye to him, while all of you were saying your good-byes to Evain and the children.” Gwyn’s eyes close, her hands falling into her lap. “He looked up at me and said, ‘Enough, Gwyn. Enough grief. When I go, stay away.’”

“Did you even know when…?” Joe reaches for her, but she stiffens without her eyes opening, and his hand falls short. 

“Of course I knew. I set a Search Alert on his name. As soon as his obituary made the news, I knew.”

“We thought.” Joe stops, glancing at Nicky. “We thought when you didn’t come, that it meant maybe you were…”

“Gone?” Her eyes flutter open then, bright with tears. “Oh. Shit. I should have ignored him and come anyway. It’s not as if the grieving hurt less crying alone here by the lake then there in whatever service an ex-spy got.”

“I’m sorry you were alone.” The fight has gone from Nicky, leaving exhaustion in his wake. 

“We feel it, you know.” Gwyn glances up at them, the tears falling softly now. “At least, I did. When Andromache went, I knew. Sébastien did too.”

She hadn’t been there with them, in Belarus. It wasn’t the sort of mission she could have contributed to without taking up arms. Instead, she’d been on a solo job around the world in New Zealand, helping activists in the Maori population organize for government bargaining over long deserved rights.

Her contact, a kind young woman named Amaia, thought Gwyn was having a heart attack when she suddenly staggered, clutching her chest and falling to her knees in the middle of a march. Had stayed as Gwyn gasped and sobbed. When she took the call hours later from Nicky. When she called Sébastien for them, reaching him at the NGO school in Haiti where he was teaching, and he answered the phone with “I know. I felt her go.”

“How did you find me?” she asks again, pouring her own tea.

“Hernandez.” Joe takes a sip of his cup, then adds sugar. “After the funeral, we went to him. He said you weren’t dead, but it wasn’t his place to give you up yet if you weren’t ready to be found.”

“What changed?”

“It’s been a decade.” Nicky takes a cookie, biting it slowly.

“Has it?”

“How long, Gwyn?” Joe’s the one asking now, and there’s no hiding the pain. “Another ten years. A hundred? Two?”

She winces and scoots the chair back, standing. “Stay here.”

And then she’s gone, out the door and down the stairs.

“Too much, maybe, tesoro mio.”

“Fuck,” Joe mutters.

“Drink your tea.”

Gwyn returns from wherever she’s been in only a couple of moments. And in her hand are a sheaf of papers. “Here.”

Joe took them, squinting at them for a long minute. Then he sighs. “Khti, these are in Finnish. I don’t speak or read Finnish.”

“Well, you’ve had almost a damn millennium, Yusuf, whose fault is that?” But the words lack heat, and she’s laughing just a little. “They’re ownership papers for the store and the flat. Transferring it to a young woman from the Sami community I’ve been mentoring. She finishes her business degree in another two months. This is her graduation present.”

Joe blinks, looking around again. “Oh.”

“Yeah. She’s brilliant, and she pushed people to help me get the Sami the most profit for their crafts. Everything Sami in the store, the proceeds are theirs. I make a profit on the other things.” She shrugs. “We’ve talked about how I can afford that because I own the building and because I have an inheritance and she may need to consider a small mark-up to keep herself going someday when she buys me out and I retire, but she’s Sami. They won’t grudge her.”

“And so this is all…”

“Going to her in about two months. And then Gitta Halonen disappears.”

“And you were just going to what? Find us?” Nicky laughs.

“Just like old times.” She tries to smile, but it slips away. “I didn’t mean to scare you. But I needed some time. Until the days of no sleep or nightmares were less then the days of sort of decent sleep.”

“Have you reached that point?” Nicky asks, and when he reaches for her, she doesn’t shy away or stiffen.

“Close enough.”

“Gwyn.” Joe frowns at her.

“It’s been a hard few decades. But I’ll be alright eventually.” She manages a smile again at last. “So, tea. And stories. Tell me something good.”

Joe and Nicky look at each other, long and thoughtful. Then, Joe grins. “We introduced Nile to century eggs.”

“Oh, this I have to hear.”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hyvää huomenta, yksi hetki- Good morning, one moment.
> 
> Anteeksi odotusa…- Sorry for the wait (cut off).
> 
> tesoro mio- my treasure
> 
> khti- sister


	12. I'll Know My Name As It's Called Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An early conversation between Quỳnh and Gwynog deepens their understanding of each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from the lyrics of The Cave by Mumford & Sons.

_**8th Century, somewhere in Anatolia** _

Gwynog can just make out the firelight through the trees. A smile lights her face. Finally. 

Then the arrow whistles through the darkness, embedding itself in her throat, and she’s choking on her own blood, going down to her knees. 

Should have called out sooner, she thinks, as the darkness creeps in and claims her.

There’s a peacefulness to death. Not the dying itself. That is usually pain, sometimes brief, sometimes lingering agony as her body fights to try to heal mortal wounds if it can before she slips to the other side. But death. That brief few moments when she’s suspended in the cool, quiet, welcoming dark. Like floating submerged in a pool with her eyes closed and even her own heartbeat hushed. A moment to...not breathe, obviously. But pause.

She gasps awake to Quỳnh kneeling beside her, wiping the arrow clean. 

“You are fortunate Andromache is not back from her hunt.” Quỳnh tucks the arrow back into her quiver. “She might have accidentally split your head in two with her ax.”

Gwynog coughs, turning to hack clotted blood out onto the ground beside them. Quỳnh offers her a water skin and she takes it, drinking and then swishing her mouth before spitting again. She hands it back and shrugs. “Wouldn’t be the worst death I’ve had.”

The older woman stares at her for a long moment, a shrewd and considering expression on her face. “You did come back quickly. What have you been up to, little one?”

“Living.” She stands. “May I fetch my horse and join the camp?”

This time, Quỳnh claps her shoulder when she rises. “Always.”

The horse is older and glad for the rest as Gwynog ties him to the line with the two sleeker war horses that Quỳnh and Andromache must ride into battle. She unsaddles him, hiding a few things away in a nearby bush, then brings her own pack and bedroll over to the fire. 

“I would not have expected,” Quỳnh offers, from where she sits sharpening her sword, “that your quiet life of service and contemplation would result in your dying often.”

There are many answers to that. That Gwynog, while devoted to her God and his Son, finds the authority of the church stifling. That the rules of so many of the monasteries and religious houses have been focused on the esoteric rather than her Lord’s example of service. That she is, perhaps, not a very good nun.

“There are those who don’t believe,” she settles on, “who see religious houses as easy pickings. You don’t have to be a warrior to die on the end of a sword.”

Quỳnh stops what she’s doing, hands going still and raising her head. “And do you simply meet death on your knees?”

Gwynog shrugs, picking up a small stick and tossing it into the fire. “It is our way.”

“It is a foolish way.”

“Perhaps.”

They sit quietly for a time. Gwynog carries a small stewpot when she travels, and she has a bag with some vegetables bought in the last town she was in. She spends the time Quỳnh uses sharpening her sword to cut them up, adding a little piece of tallow and stirring until they sizzle. A little salt and some precious pepper, then water, and soon they’re stewing nicely.

“How did you find us?” Quỳnh’s voice startles Gwynog out of her revelry.

“Hmm?”

“We’ve not seen you in many years. How did you know where to look to find us?” Quỳnh sits back, her sharpening stone now singing against the blade of a dagger. “Some Christian magic?”

“The same that I’ve always had.”

“Ah. Your Lord.” Unlike Andromache all those years ago, Quỳnh’s tone wasn’t wholly dismissive. “He drew you a map?”

“No.” No, but in her dreams, once she’d decided to leave the last place she’d been, once she’d known in her heart she should seek out those who she shares immortality with again, she’d asked her Lord for guidance. And he’d told her her feet would know the way. Every morning, when she woke, she simply had a direction in mind. “Nothing so direct.”

“Still, it is a neat trick.”

“Not a trick. A blessing.” Of that, Gwynog is quite sure. For all that this wandering life has often proved lonely to her in a way it perhaps is not to Andromache and Quỳnh, bound as warriors and lovers, and tiring, it is a blessing. 

“Hmmmm.” Then Quỳnh smiles again. “It is good to see you.”

“And you.”

“Tell me of your adventures, since we last saw each other.”

“They are not half so daring as yours, I expect.” She spends some time stirring the pot, sharing a few tales of the various religious houses she’s stopped at, and the villages in between. The vegetables are softening, and Andromache still hasn’t returned. “Should we be concerned about her?”

Quỳnh gives her a look that Gwynog herself has been known to give to particularly recalcitrant goats. “She is Andromache. And we are as we are.”

“There are worse things in this life than death.”

Her companion sits up at that and Gwynog winces. That was more honesty than she wished to give up tonight. 

“What exactly have you learned about that, little one?”

Gwynog forces a shrug. “One hears tales.”

Quỳnh’s eyes narrow, but Gwynog doesn’t flinch again. She’s learned that, at least.

Finally, the other woman nods. “She enjoys night hunting. She’ll return before too much longer.”

“I suppose we should save her some of this stew, then.”

That startles a laugh, bright and sharp, out of the older woman. “We can try. It smells good.”

As they eat their two bowls, leaving Andromache’s warm by the fire, Quỳnh continues to sneak looks at her. Finally, she sets the wooden bowl Gwynog had brought with her down. “Have you found anyone worthy? On your travels?”

“Worthy of what?” Gwynog swipes some of the broth up with some stale flatbread Quỳnh offered her. 

“Taking to your bed.”

Gwynog chokes, aspirating bread into her lungs. In terms of death, it wouldn’t be her stupidest. But she manages to hack and sputter and drink down the offered cup of sour ale as her airway clears, cursing in Cymru.

“That isn’t going to happen.”

“You are still faithful to your ghost, then?”

Gwynog sucks in air slowly through her nose, then blows the breath out through her mouth. “Firstly, he’s not a ghost. I am not being haunted.”

“Andromache thinks he’s a hallucination, and you are endearingly mad.”

“Perhaps.” Gwynog shrugs. “Or there are more things on earth and in the firmament than Andromache has given space in her philosophy.”

Quỳnh snorts at that. Then she sighs. “You miss the pleasure in it, little one.”

“That I do not.”

“How do you know, unless you try?”

Gwynog sets her bowl aside and flops back on her bed roll. The sky is awash with stars, more than she can count. There are subtle differences in the sky here than there were back home. Then there have been other places. She enjoys staring at it on the nights she is lonely before sleep takes her. It makes her feel both more small, and less.

“Little one?”

Gwynog rolls to her side and looks at her companion. “Do you desire the company of men often, Quỳnh?”

The other woman shudders. “No. There has been only one, ever.”

“Lykon.”

“And only when it was he and I and Andromache together.”

“But just for yourself, you do not wish to lay with men?”

Quỳnh’s disgust is palpable. “No.”

“Even when there would indeed be pleasure in it?”

“Any man who is not Lykon could not bring me pleasure.”

“But if you have not done so, how do you know?”

Quỳnh goes deathly quiet for a long time. Then she says, simply, “Oh.”

“Mmmhmm.”

“I see.”

“Whatever desire you have that bids you bring Andromache to your bed? I feel no such thing. For anyone.” 

“Not even your ghost husband?”

“Not even him. The ecstasy he brings me is something different all together. Something beyond my ability to explain.” Gwynog shrugs half a shoulder, a gesture she picked up in a village that seemed to run on it’s own time five years ago. How can you explain holy ecstasy, not of the flesh, but of the soul, to someone? “I enjoy the fond embrace of a friend. Dancing with others. Consoling each other in grief. But I go to my bed alone.”

“I see.” Then, after a further pause. “Forgive me, little sister?”

It’s not a word Quỳnh has used before. Sister. “For what?”

“For being tedious.” A moment later, the woman is beside her, moving swift as a snake across the space between them. She tugs her up and pulls her into a hug, one Gwynog accepts with wide eyed confusion. “And for not offering you a fond embrace sooner. Will you travel with us for a while?”

“If you don’t think Andromache will mind.”

“What will I mind?” The oldest of them materializes out of the dark, an antelope of her shoulders. “Gwynog. Welcome.”

“Andromache.”

“I have asked our little sister to travel with us for a while, my heart.”

Andromache’s eyes widen at the new endearment, but she simply nods. “Of course.” She settles the antelope over near a tree away from the horses. “Now, what smells like dinner.”

In the morning, Gwynog wakes to a small green jade figure next to her head. When she glances up, Quỳnh looks at her and nods. She wraps it carefully in one of her veils and then slips it safely into her pack.

It won’t leave her for centuries to come.


	13. Cause two can keep a secret (if one of them is dead)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When dreams of a lab and a betrayal wake Gwyn up, she's going to make sure there aren't loose ends left to hurt her family until she's ready to be with them again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is from Two Can Keep a Secret by The Pierces

**Seattle, WA 2020**

Gwyn started her evening the day before with friends and co-workers out to celebrate Nadia’s twenty-second trip round the sun. After amazing Ethiopian food, they’d bar crawled up and down Capitol Hill for hours before washing up at a co-ed burlesque review. While she had no interest in touching, Gwyn could appreciate human beauty. Also a good show, some amazing talent, and excellent puns.

She’d stumbled out of her Lyft at nearly 3AM, letting herself into her little house, staggering up the stairs, and finding just enough energy to strip out of clothes that smelled like beggi wat and bar and run a cleansing cloth over her face before crawling into bed. She passed out before her head hit the pillow.

And there were Nico and Joseph strapped to beds in some kind of facility. Fractured dreams that jumped between the perspective of the Frenchman her little family had taken to calling Booker and to someone new. Someone Gwyn, who’d been running on frankly obscene amounts of caffeine and no sleep, hadn’t seen before. Young. Black. Lovely and lethal.

Andy, not healing. A prolonged extraction. A horrific fall. An escape.

She gasped awake, her scream stuck in her parched throat. 

Grabbing first for the water glass on her bed stand, she chugged the whole thing. Then she grabbed her phone. 4:30AM in Seattle. In Boston…

“Hello?” Manny’s voice hit her like a wave of calm, slowing her heart.

“I need you.”

“One minute.” The other line went quiet for a minute. Two. Gwyn made herself breathe, counting in and out. Then, “Tell me.”

“There’s going to be news out of Europe, probably framed as a terror attack on...some kind of lab facility. Private. Corporate. I need you to get into the system of wherever it is.”

“Gwynna?”

“My friends, the ones I told you I lost so many years ago. They’re not dead. I just walked away for…” She stopped. “It doesn’t matter right now. I promise, I’ll explain later. But they were holding them. They managed to get out.”

“Shit.” Clacking echoed over the line, a sound so familiar from her years married to this man, she wanted to weep. “I’ve got a report out of the UK. Merrick Pharma.”

Gwyn’s eyes widened. “Fuck me.”

“Give me a minute. I’m almost...Oh, you thought you were very clever, didn’t you, but you left that little loophole.” Manny laughed. “I’m in. What do you want me to do?”

Gwyn took a deep breath. “I need to know who was directly involved and if they’re all dead. If they aren’t, I need their files from Human Resources.”

“That may take a day or two.”

“That’s fine. I’ll need that to come up with a reason to be suddenly gone from work.”

“Gwyn,” Manny said slowly. “What are you talking about?”

“If someone with ill intent knows about us Manny…”

There’s a long, long pause on the other end of the line. Then a soft, “Oh.”

Gwyn bit her lip. “I don’t want to. I am hoping the extraction took care of anyone who needed it.”

“What about your friends? Can’t they... you told me once they were fighters.”

“There are complications for them right now. They might not realize anyone survived.” And with the betrayal she’d seen, without Booker to do the search work, the clean up. “Manny, I may need you to wipe the shit out of their system.”

The other end of the line remained silent.

“Manny?”

“Sorry. I’m watching the footage of...what this scientist is…” 

Gwyn cringed. “Man or woman?”

“Woman. With a couple of lab assistants.” He growled. “I’ll cross reference with their HR mainframe.”

“I need you to wipe all this footage when you’re done. How long before you know if they lived?”

“Eight hours. Ten at the most.”

“Okay. I’m going to pack. If I need to go to the UK, which burner alias is best?”

He paused again, the clicking of keys never stopping. Finally, he answered, “Miranda Cosgrove.”

“Right. Thanks Manny.”

“I’ll send the results to the secure address.”

“You’re my hero.”

“Gwyn.” He paused. “Be safe.”

“I will. Love you, Manny.”

“And I you.”

****

There were always rats. The ones who escaped, who fled. They’re a given, in things like this. It wasn’t even the first thing like this, minus the issue of the Frenchman’s betrayal and Gwyn was equal parts livid and heartbroken with him. And furious with herself. She’d let her exile go too long, let herself be too selfish, and look at what it wrought. Fuck.

She emailed her boss about a family emergency and requested leave for a week for a funeral in the UK. It was granted, and she felt horrible for lying, but truth lay in it. There’s grief. Deep grief at the root of all of this. Things to bury, things to mourn. Things to start thinking through. 

But first, she had a rat problem and a flight to catch.

She landed in JFK with a four hour layover when her ProtonMail lets her know she has mail.

Manny has been thorough. Of the employees on film interacting with the five people he has identified as her immortal family, only one isn’t on the list of confirmed dead. One name, then. It’s both a relief and not. A relief that it would only be one person’s blood on her hands. Not, that she won’t take more for the harm they’d all done.

Manny added a curious postscript that as he was in the system, preparing to go through and wipe the footage, someone else logged in, booted him out, and in the ten minutes it took him to find a new loophole, had done it themselves. Gwyn frowned at that. Booker had been good, but to go up against Manvir? Not quite that good.

Still, it meant that she had only one target to see when she landed. She checked the address, then made reservations for a non-descript rental car, and settled in to read Manny’s dossier on her target.

***

The house was in Kent. A semi-detached at the end of it’s row, with a neat enough garden, though a little overgrown at the moment. Blue shutters. Slate roof. Belonged to the target’s sister and her husband, currently out of the country on holiday. The target had informed police she’d be going to stay there for a while until the media had lost interest. Good. The further from London, the better.

Gwyn patted her no-nonsense bun, shifted in her elegant suit, and vowed that if she got through this, she’d let herself finally do something ridiculous and memorable with her hair. Then she rang the bell.

The woman who answered it looked like someone’s secondary school maths teacher in her cardigan over a plain grey t-shirt and khaki pants. Her highlighted hair, in need of a touch-up, had been pulled back behind her head. She peered at Gwyn with disdain. “Yes?”

“Dr. Meta Kozak?” Gwyn asked brightly, smiling.

“No press, no interviews.” Dr. Kozak started to shut the door, but Gwyn shoved her foot forward to stop her.

“I’m not with the press, Dr. Kozak. My name is Miranda Cosgrove.” Gwyn held out a business card, made at the Seattle FedEx Kinkos before she left. “I’m a trauma counselor with Holdenfeld and Associates. We’ve been retained by the Employee Assistance Program at Merrick to meet with people who were in the building during the tragedy and offer assistance.”

Kozak scrutinized the little rectangle, noting the BACP after her name. “You seem young to be accredited.”

“I graduated from school early.”

The woman sniffed. “Well, thank you for coming, but I don’t need counseling. I’m fine.”

“Oh, dear. Did you not get the email?” Gwyn chewed her lip a little. “I’m afraid it’s mandatory, not voluntary. A one hour session. HR was supposed to be emailing everyone, but you’re the third visit I’ve done where that’s glitched.”

“And if I don’t comply?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know. I’m terribly sorry.” Gwyn shrugged gently. “Look, we just have to sit and chat for an hour. How about if I come in, make us both a nice cuppa, and then we can talk about whatever you’d like. Bake-Off. Gardening. Science. And then you’ll have met the requirement, and I’ll be out of your way.”

“Fine.” The woman swung the door open wide, allowing Gwyn to pass. “Kitchen’s to your left.”

“Splendid!”

Fifteen minutes later, the two of them sat in the rear sitting room overlooking a back garden, sipping tea they Gwyn had prepared.

“This tea is overly bitter,” Kozak complained. Gwyn passed her the milk and sugar “So I can talk about anything?”

“Anything you like,” Gwyn assured her, taking a sip of her own cup.

Kozak harrumphed. “And if I wished to discuss how counseling is for the weak willed and the small minded and the fools?”

“I would tell you,” Gwyn replied, utterly unruffled as she noticed the fine sheen of sweat breaking out on the woman’s brow, “that many people think as you do, and that while I disagree with the assessment, your feelings are your own and are valid.”

“Feelings!”

“Indeed. Feelings like triumph. Or disappointment. Have you had recent disappointments, Dr. Kozak?”

The woman blinked at her. Sweat dripped down Gwyn’s own back. 

“Everyone has disappointments in life.”

“Perhaps guilt? Or shame?”

“No.”

“Really? Often those who go through an incident like you did feel intense survivor’s guilt. You lost your assistants, didn’t you? And your boss? Were you close to Mr. Merrick?”

Kozak was sweating profusely now and slipped off her cardigan. “Is it hot in here to you?”

“Hmmmm,” Gwyn offered, ignoring the cramping in her gut.

Kozak didn’t. She clutched her stomach, then dropped her now empty cup. “The...tea.”

Gwyn just smiled. “Laced with aconite.”

“In...my cup?”

Gwyn carefully set her own cup aside and moved to sling one of Kozak’s arms around her shoulder. “In the pot.”

“But...we both...drank. Madness.”

Gwyn managed to stagger them to the bathroom, getting Kozak’s pants and panties down and getting her on the toilet just as the unfortunate and messy side effects hit. “Yes. But even if it kills me, I’ll come back, Meta.”

The woman blinked at her and then moaned, “One...of...them.”

“If by them you mean my little brothers you treated like living cadavers, yes.” Leaning in close, Gwyn whispered in Meta’s ear. “I’ve been a doctor trained for centuries, Meta Kozak. Since the School at Salerno. I’ve studied us longer than you can fathom. And there is no science to explain us. No cure.”

The woman moaned again, unintelligible.

“Please know, this isn’t about vengeance. If it were, I’d have waited and left Nico and Joseph to find you.” She eased the woman off the toilet, flushing it, and then pulled her pants back up and zipped them into place. “You know the secret. And that makes you too dangerous to be allowed to live.”

Gwyn hefted Meta Kozak back up, maneuvering her back out to the rear sitting room. Then she let her fall to the floor. “It will be over soon.”

Leaving her where she fell, Gwyn returned to the bathroom to void her own bowels and splash water on her face. Then she returned, sitting on the ground near Meta Kozak and waiting for death to take them.

***

After, when she gasped back awake, she carefully washed and dried the tea things and put them back away, then used a soft cloth to wipe down things she’d touched that would seem odd for a counselor's visit. She cleaned the bathroom. Then she let herself out, walked the block away to her car, and drove to the quaint little hotel she’d booked into.

At half past seven, she started calling the house line of the home Meta Kozak was staying in, letting it ring and then leaving messages. 

“Dr. Kozak, this is Miranda Cosgrove. I just wanted to check on you since you said you felt unwell when I was by earlier. Please call my cell back. It’s on the card.”

“Dr. Kozak, Miranda Cosgrove again. I’m quite concerned. Do please ring back.”

“Dr. Kozak, Miranda again. If I haven’t heard from you by half past nine, I’m phoning 999 for a welfare check.”

At just before ten in the evening, Miranda Cosgrove, registered with the British Association of Counselors and Psychologists, called 999 regarding the welfare of a woman she’d met with earlier that day who’d complained of feeling poorly and who now wasn’t answering the phone.

She met emergency services at the address, and was horrified when they entered and found the subject, Dr. Meta Kozak, dead in the living room of an apparent heart attack. “I should have stayed,” Ms. Cosgrove sobbed to the policeman taking her statement. “I should have pushed her harder to go be seen at hospital.”

After giving her statement, and after police spoke to her supervisor, a Mr. Rahul Gupta, Ms. Cosgrove was sent back to her hotel.

From whence she disappeared.

***

Surrey, England, 2020

James Copley looked at the autopsy in his hand again. 

Heart Arrhythmia. 

He dialed. 

“What?”

“Always lovely to speak to you as well, Andromache.”

“I’m trying to recuperate, Copley. What could you possibly want? We said no jobs for another two weeks.”

“I found Meta Kozak. Or rather, I found why we couldn’t find Meta Kozak.”

Silence hung on the other end of the line for a long moment. Then Andromache said, “You’re on speaker. Where is she?”

“In the morgue in Kent, waiting on her sister and brother-in-law to return to the UK.” Copley paused himself. “Do you, Mr. di Genova, or Mr. al-Kaysani have a dab hand at poisons, out of curiosity?”

“Why the fuck would we poison her when swords exist?” Andromache asked. In the background, he’s fairly certain Joe snorted. 

“Did someone poison her?” came Nile’s voice.

Copley looked at the report again. “Not according to the autopsy. Heart arrhythmia.”

“Pity. Probably didn’t hurt.” That was definitely Joe.

“Any reason to think it is not so?” Nicky chimed in.

No. Not if it hadn’t been them. And it hadn’t been Booker- he’s had someone discreetly watching Booker.

“I suppose not. Sorry to interrupt. I’ll speak to you in two week.”

“Bye!” Nile called before the call cut out.

Heart arrhythmia.

Frowning, Copley slid the file into a drawer.


	14. I'm writing about (the book I read)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Five times another immortal was shocked by Gwyn's choice of reading material, and one time they weren't.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See end for source notes.
> 
> Title is from The Book I Read by the Talking Heads.




**8th C CE, somewhere in Anatolia**

Gwyn paid for an inn for the night for the three of them. Her horse picked up a stone and needed to stop and they were near a town anyway. Real beds, a hot meal, and a chance to bathe was too good an opportunity to pass up. Now clean and well fed, she sat on the smaller of the two beds in the room they’d rented, an oil lamp on the little table next to her and a scroll in her hands.

“What are you reading?” Quỳnh asked as she sat in front of Andromache, letting the older woman comb out her hair.

“It is a section of what my faith calls the Old Testament, and that the Jews consider one of the five megillots that are read at major festivals,” Gwyn answered without really looking up. “It is said that King Solomon wrote it.”

“He was a wordy bastard.” Andromache slid the comb through her lover’s hair. 

That made Gwyn glance up. “I never know if you are serious about such things.”

Andromache shrugged. “I prefer you not to be.”

Sighing, Gwyn returned her eyes to the scroll. “I helped deliver a child for a man who copies out holy texts in the Jewish quarter of Constantinople a few years back. He made me this copy as a thank you. It’s one of my favorite parts of scripture.”

“You should read it aloud,” Quỳnh said. “Please.”

Gwyn looked between them. Quỳnh smiled warmly at her, and Andromache just shrugged, so she took a sip of watered wine, returned to the beginning of the text, and began to read it aloud.

“Oh, give me of the kisses of your mouth, For your love is more delightful than wine. Your ointments yield a sweet fragrance, Your name is like finest oil— Therefore do maidens love you. Draw me after you, let us run! The king has brought me to his chambers. Let us delight and rejoice in your love, Savoring it more than wine— Like new wine they love you!”

She read on for some minutes before she realized total silence had overtaken the room. She looked up to find both Andromache and Quỳnh gaping at her. 

“Do you not...it’s in Hebrew. I assumed you spoke it.”

“We do.” Andromache continued to stare at her. 

Gwyn looked between them. “Is something else wrong?”

“They put that in their Holy Books?” Quỳnh snickered.

“Yes.” 

“And you like it. Especially.” Andromache leaned forward, her chin on Quỳnh’s shoulder. “With your vow of supernatural virginity or whatever?”

Gwyn arched an eyebrow at them. “It’s an allegory for the love between the soul and God.”

“Sure it is,” Andromache said, and both women burst out laughing.

Gwyn frowned. “Entertain yourselves, then.”

*****

II.

**12th C CE, the Levant**

The five of them sat around a small fire, the evening’s meal done. Nicolò sat to one side with his sword and Yusuf’s and a sharpening stone, working to hone their blades. Quỳnh and Andromache sat across the fire, whispering softly to each other. And Yusuf sat next to her, a small warm smile on his face.

“This is nice. It has been good traveling with Nicolò, but I have missed being in company we could trust fully.” 

“I can understand that.” She reached into the saddle bag at her side and pulled out a date offering it to him. “Do you come from a large family?”

“Yes. Back home, I had two brothers and three sisters. I’m the second youngest, and so I also had many nieces and nephews.” He gazed wistfully into the fire. “It pains me to know they think me dead.”

Gwyn’s hand caught his with a squeeze of support. “It was hard to leave my own siblings and their families, when the time came. Kin is a blessing in a mortal life, but can be a heartache to those like us.”

He nodded. “I miss small things about home, too. The smell of the sea in the harbor. The spices of the marketplace.” A further sigh escaped him. “My father’s library.”

“Do you love books then?”

“Very much so. My father had many. I think I’d read all of them.” He smiled again. “I’ve even written some poetry before.”

“May I read it, one day?”

Yusuf ducked his head a little, a move the reminded her of her eldest nephew when he was pleased with himself. “If I have cause to have it written down.”

Gwyn chuckled. “And you travel with no books?”

“No.” Yusuf’s smile slipped away. “They’re hard to pack, and there is the cost. We initially fled the war with nothing. We’ve made our way, but we aren’t wealthy men.”

Gwyn squeezed his hand again, then let go. She turned back to her saddlebag, digging in the other side. Coming out with a small, flat package wrapped carefully in waxed linen, she stroked her fingers across it. It had been another gift, and an odd one. She’d enjoyed it, but her new brother would enjoy it more, she was sure.

Turning back to him, she pressed it into his hands. “Here. It takes up little enough room in a saddle bag. And I’ve read it enough that I’ve practically memorized it. A gift.”

Yusuf gaped at her, then unwrapped the linen cloth and opened the binding gently.

Then he squawked.

To his other side, Nicolò jerked and sliced his thumb, cursing in Zeneize. 

“What?” called Andromache.

“Nothing. Nothing, I thought a scorpion crossed my boot. Sorry.”

Gwyn merely looked at him.

“You read this, sister?” he asked, low and sharp.

“Many times.”

“Abu Nawas. You have read the poetry of Abu Nawas _many times_?” Yusuf set the book carefully in his lap and ran a hand down his face. “Are you sure you read Arabic?”

“Quite well and for a few hundred years now. I even met him once, at the end of his life.” She nodded to the book. “Lovely old man, still randy as an unaltered goat.”

Yusuf muttered a prayer in Arabic.

“I assume you know the works then?”

“Aren’t you supposed to be....Nicolò had to be chaste, as a priest.”

“I am. I don’t see what that has to do with anything. Honestly, Yusuf.” She grinned softly at him. “I recommend ‘The Lovers’. You should read it to Nicolò sometime.”

“You are a demon, sent to torment me.”

“Aren’t all older sisters?”

Somewhere across the fire, Quỳnh snorted.

***

III.

**1496 CE Roma, Italian Peninsula**

The day had been long. Gwyn, still going by Giovanna, had managed an introduction into the domain of the ladies of the papal court and had become a favorite of both the Pope’s daughter Lucretia and his mistress Guilia Farnese. While she liked both young women, the social whirl around them was exhausting. Especially in light of the news that her former charge, Biana Sforza, had died.

All she wanted was to eat a light meal and use the last of the summer sun to read in the courtyard of the house that Andromache and the others had managed to acquire in a fashionable part of town for her.

To the untrained observer, she must have appeared a defenseless thing, sitting on a chair in the garden, the small tome in her hands and a plate and goblet on the little pedestal table at her elbow. No guard. No maid. No one to raise an alarm.

Which is how her very dear brother Nicolò almost came to have a knife through his throat.

“Has anyone told you it is rude to throw weapons at guests?” he asked, ambling into the center of the green space with her after he retrieved her knife from the tree it had stuck into.

“Has anyone told you that sneaking around like a cat might cost you some of our untold lives?” she replied in Zeneize. “Hello, little brother.”

“Sorella mia.” He nodded at the second chair. “Expecting company?”

“Not especially, but here you are. Sit down. I can go call for wine.”

Nicolò shook his head. “No need. I just came by to see how you were and if you needed anything.”

Gwyn raised an eyebrow. “I come to Roma for all of you, and you tell me to infiltrate the court and plant me in this house and I never see you. Actual non-surprise visits might be nice. Perhaps a family dinner.”

Nicolò laughed, a low, gravelly chuckle. “Are you lonely, sorella?”

Gwyn didn’t laugh. “Actually, yes.”

His laughter died. “Gwyn?”

“Bianca is dead. Her husband was kind enough to write to me. A stomach ailment.” She bit her lip. “She was a sweet young woman who deserved more.”

In an instant, Nicolò was on his feet, pulling her to hers and tugging her in for a tight hug. “I am so sorry.”

Gwyn laughed a little wetly, her own arms clinging to him. “That is the nature of things, though. There is a season for all.”

He didn’t respond to that, just kept holding her. Finally, she pulled back. “Are you sure you won’t stay for wine?”

“I can have a glass.”

“Thank you.” She waved him to the second seat, setting her book down in her own chair. “Back in a few minutes.”

When she returned with a second goblet and a small jug of wine, she found Nicolò with her book in her hands and his eyebrows up to his forehead. “Are you well?”

“This book…” he stammered.

“Yes?”

“I thought it would be a book of hours, perhaps. Or the psalms.”

Gwyn chuckled. “No.”

“Sorella mia, this book is positively filthy.”

The chuckle became a laugh. “I think it’s hilarious. And sort of poignant. Telling stories to hold back the dark.”

“It’s...they’re...bawdy stories!”

“Boccaccio was writing for the masses.” She shrugged and poured his wine, then refilled her own. “I’m guessing Yusuf never read you the copy of Abu Nawas I gave him then?”

“That was you?!”

Gwyn cackled.

***

IV.

**2021, Pembrokeshire, Wales**

“What,” Sébastien started, “and I do mean WHAT the actual fuck is this?”

Gwyn glanced down from the small stepladder she’d been using to put the books he’d been handing her up on her shelves. Perhaps it would have made more sense to have Sébastien, with his ridiculous height, do it. But she hadn’t figured out how to order them yet. By acquisition? Publication date? Author? Age? So it made more sense to be where she could reach them.

The book in his hand didn’t appear particularly special. Brown leather binding, barely any gilt, a slim volume. Based on the shape and overall condition, probably mid-nineteenth century. “Tilt the spine, I can’t read it.”

“The title isn’t on the spine.”

“Odd.” She cocked her head. “It’s not a journal, is it? I didn’t keep many.”

“No. Definitely not that.”

Gwyn sighed. “Sébastien, ma frère, I am significantly older than you and have been through one traumatic death adjacent experience recently. You’re going to have to give me more to go on.”

Heaving a sigh, the man opened the book and read, “THE renowned Aaron Burr was a standing argument against the old saying, that "none but fools fall in love with women." This talented, heroic, and energetic man was an adorer of the fair sex. From the age of puberty to the day of his death, (which occurred in his eightieth year,) Aaron Burr was keenly alive to the fascinations of the fairer portion of creation, and esteemed their smiles as sunny rays darted from heaven.”

“Ohhhhhh.” Gwyn chuckled, catching the edge of the built in cabinet for support. “That old thing.”

“That. Old. Thing.” Her little brother’s eyelid twitched. “Merde!”

“Calm down. It’s...well, I think the children today call it real person fiction in fandom circles.”

“I don’t think those words work together in the English language.”

“Aren’t you contractually obligated to hate the English and their language?”

“Aren’t you English?” he shot back.

“Do you want to fight?”

“No.”

“Alright then. Never call a truly Welsh person English. It’s a good way to die.” Gwyn waved him back and then climbed down the ladder, taking the book from his hands. “This was written in the 1860s sometime, after Burr had died. I ran across a copy while on leave from my nursing duties during the war, and it seemed like a lark.”

“It’s pornography.”

“I mean, essentially. But I knew Burr, which makes it funnier.”

“I...you...this is….” Sébastien stopped. “I don’t understand your interest.”

“Comedy.” She flipped through it. “The writing is abysmal and fictitious and the fact that people found this titillating is hilarious.”

Sébastien just stared at her. Finally, he sighed. “Will I grow this inscrutable with age, do you think?”

“One can only hope, ma frère.” She leaned up and pecked a kiss at his cheek. “Now, back to work, these books won’t unpack themselves.”

With a huff, he dropped back to the floor and reached for the next book in the box.

****

V.

**2022, Pembrokeshire, Wales**

After everything- Quỳnh’s return and the round the world search for her only to find her back in Gwyn’s own house; Booker’s progress; Andy’s need for time with her lover and Joe and Nicky recognizing that what they really needed after it all was time alone in Malta-applying to graduate school in the UK was an easy decision. Nile loved school as much as she ever loved being a Marine. And with Copley’s help, she’d gotten into the University of St. Andrews in Scotland for her PhD in Art History. 

Gwyn had thrown her a party, and then offered her a safe haven away from school for the long breaks. Which is how Nile found herself in Gwyn’s recently remodeled kitchen, futzing around and contemplating something for dinner while her older sister and Booker were off somewhere on a farm supply run.

Among the lovely, shining new appliances in the kitchen, Nile noticed a countertop speaker. “Hey, Google,” she tried.

No response.

“Alexa?”

No response.

Hmmm.

Then, a thought occurred to her, and she called out, “Manny?”

“Good afternoon, Miss Freeman. How can I assist?”

Of course. Of course Manvir would build Gwyn some sort of custom, unhackable digital assistant device. One that sounded like him. Nile shook her head, laughing.

“Manny, what’s the weather in Malta?”

“The weather in Valletta is partially cloudy with a high of 19C and breezes out of the southeast.”

“How many oranges are imported to the US every year?”

“Approximately 166,074 tons.”

Nile was having too much fun.

“Hey Manny, can you sync my phone so I can play my music?”

The assistant paused. “I’m sorry, Miss Freeman, that isn’t currently allowed in my protocols. Please ask Gwynna to speak to my maker.”

Drat. So much for jamming to Frank Ocean and working on dinner. Gwyn’s taste would have to do.

“Play the last audio from the stopping point.”

Nile expected the Dropkick Murphys. Or maybe Gregorian Chant. Possibly some neuvo-swing band. Gwyn had diverse tastes, and Nile had heard more than a few of them on her breaks. 

Instead, what she heard was a person reading aloud.

The narrator affected a soft, feminine voice. ‘“Is this…” she said. “Is this how we’re going to do this?”

Then they switched to something gruffer and more masculine. “Like this,” he told her, and fitted his cock against her sex. “Exactly like this. Slowly. Tell me if it hurts, and well…”’

“MANNY, STOP AUDIO.”

“What did Manny do to you?” Gwyn asked at the back kitchen door, knocking her boots against the jam to dislodge the mud and then moving to let Booker follow her in with more bags. 

“I...you...what…”

“Nile?” Booker asked.

Nile couldn’t speak, just pointed at the device.

Gwyn raised an eyebrow. “Manny, play back the last two minutes of audio.”

The three of them stood there as the dialogue replayed, echoing in the silence of the kitchen. It cut off exactly where it did the last time. Nile’s eyes shot to Booker, expecting shock and similar support.

He shrugged. “Oh. Is that all?”

“It’s erotica.”

“I mean, it’s mainstream romance. I don’t think Courtney Milan counts as full blown erotica.” Gwyn started putting things away calmly. “I didn’t realize I left Audible on there as the last thing played. Sorry, Nile.”

“But you. Sex. That.”

“That isn’t even the weirdest sex thing in this house,” Booker muttered, before sorting his few bags from the mass on the kitchen table and waving, then heading back out to his own cottage.

“Wha…?”

Gwyn sighed, stopping what she was doing. “Nile, how many times did you either overhear Nicky and Joe, or walk in on them, since you became immortal?”

“Too many.”

“Exactly.” Gwyn chuckled. “Look, do I want to personally, physically experience sex? No. Not even a little. Not ever again.” Her face darkened for a minute, and Nile knew where her mind had gone. “But it can be a beautiful thing between two people with mutual respect and desire for each other. Or it can be comedic.”

“I can sort of see that.”

“Romance, these days, as a genre, promises me that the story will have a happy ending. I like happy endings. They’re all too rare in life.” She shrugged. “So if that means I have to hear or read about turgid manhoods sometimes, so be it.”

“Still gonna be odd, wrapping my head around.”

“I get that. Now, help me put these groceries away, and I’ll call Manvir about adding you to the protocol so you can use your own playlist next time.”

“Thanks.”

Gwyn smiled. “My pleasure.”

****

I.

**2322 CE, Eastern Europe**

As safe houses went, this one was surprisingly nice. Well kept, clean, decently stocked. Probably because it was Gwyn’s. She’d joined them on this mission when they’d called because there were children. Because they needed someone to get in ahead of them and have the kids ready to go when they went in the exfiltrate, and Gwyn spoke the language and looked like a preschool teacher. Could pass for a local, which explained this safe house, fifty miles away from the target, where the basement den was now a slumber party of sleeping kids with Booker keeping watch while Joe and Nicky swept the perimeter. Nile and Gwyn sat in the living room, reviewing the terrain they’d need to cross to get the kids out and safe to their contact who would get them all home.

“You did good on this one,” Nile murmured.

Gwyn didn’t answer, the point of a knife scraping under her nails at the blood she’d washed away hours ago. She’d killed a man with that knife when he’d turned on her and the children with his gun. Been ready to mow them all down rather than lose the cash cow that kidnapped kids could be. She’d rushed him and driven it right into his eye.

“I’m sorry we got delayed.”

“It was a risk I knew going in.” Gwyn finally set the knife down. “I made the right choice. I’ll pray for his soul and eventually get over it.”

“Hey boss.” Olivia walks in, setting two mugs of tea down in front of them. “Gwyn.”

“Thanks, Liv.”

“You’re welcome.” She smiled warmly. Then she added, “I dropped a new file to your pad. I know you’re usually fine with racy, but this ones an OT3. Is that cool?”

Gwyn’s face lit up. “That sounds great. I can use the distraction.”

“Cool. It’s a nice slow burn. I think you’ll really love it. Let me know when you finish and we can talk about it.”

“I appreciate it, Liv.”

The youngest of them wandered away, probably to take a cup of tea to Booker and check on the kids. 

Nile raised an eyebrow at her. “OT3?”

“Liv and I swap reading recommendations. We have some fandoms in common.”

Nile laughed. “Of course you do. How did she take finding out you read what you read?”

“Better than any of you, honestly.” Gwyn shrugged. “She said something about fandom preferences not being a part of the Id, and then asked me if I’d read this 250,000 magnum opus in this fandom we both love.”

“Huh.”

Gwyn shrugged. “What can I say? Some people just get it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everything Gwyn reads is real, though I do not have a specific OT3 in mind for the last bit. But lord knows there are enough of them out there. For the others, here are links to sources.
> 
> I. The Song of Songs, translation here: https://www.sefaria.org/Song_of_Songs.1?lang=bi
> 
> II. Abu Nawas, _Carousing with Gazelles: Homoerotic Songs of Old Baghdad_ translated by Jaafar abu Tarab. https://www.iuniverse.com/en/bookstore/bookdetails/123186-Carousing-with-Gazelles
> 
> III. Boccacio's Decameron, about a bunch of young people who flee the plague for a Tuscan villa and pass the time telling stories. Raunchy, inappropriate stories. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/23700/23700-h/23700-h.htm
> 
> IV. The Amorous Intrigues of Aaron Burr: Rich, Rare and Racy Reading, Anonymous, published in 1861. Oh, did you think Fan Fiction was new? http://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/TEIgeneral/view?docId=wright/VAC5581;chunk.id=d1e181;toc.depth=1;toc.id=d1e181;brand=wright;doc.view=0;query=
> 
> V. Courtney Milan, The Suffragette Scandal, published by Courtney Milan 2014 and available in print and e-book. And yes, on audible. (Confession, I have only read this, not listened to it).


	15. I'm waking up to ash and dust

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Andromache hadn't really taken to this new younger sister of hers. This strange, possibly crazy pacifist nun. After all, her people are warriors and courage is tested in battle. Or is it?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Gwyn experiences some pretty horrific burn injuries in this one. If that is not a thing you deal with well, give this one a skip. 
> 
> Title is from the lyrics to Radioactive by Imagine Dragons

1238, Transylvania

Andromache rode hard,  Quỳnh at her side and Yusuf and Nicolò behind them. They’d been heading north, toward the lands she’d come from, a chance for her to show them to their two newest brothers, when word had come of raiders harassing the villages in the commune of  Roșia Montană. Some feud between lords spilling over and shedding innocent blood. They’d changed course, hoping to arrive in time.

As she rode, Andromache gave thanks to fate that their fifth sibling had gone her own way weeks before. She liked Gwynog well enough, but she’d never taken to the woman quite how  Quỳnh had. Her stubborn refusal to pick up a weapon made Andromache’s teeth grind, and her stubborn belief in a Christ who lived in her head spelled madness. Better she make her way back to her nunneries and charity before she could corrupt either Yusuf or Nicolò. What had she said this time, something about a school of medicine somewhere on the Peninsula of Italia? Nowhere Nicolò would wish to venture anytime soon, from the look on his face.

As they thundered down the road, the signs of carnage began to make themselves known. The cawing of carrion birds. The cloud of acrid smoke rising up and wafting toward them, carrying with it a smell of roasting flesh. And as they came around the turn to a place too small to be a city, but something larger than just a village, the eerie lack of screams. 

She swore in a language lost to all but Quỳnh now. In the center of the square, the remains of the church smoldered. Here and there, bodies of men lay in the street, cut down where they stood. Some held actual weapons, swords and axes. Others held hoes or scythes. “Too late.”

“Was everyone else in the church, do you think?” Quỳnh asked, looking around. “Where are the women? The children?”

“Maybe they had warning, and they fled into the hills?” Yusuf suggested. “They burnt the church, but not much else.”

“It’s not really impressive enough to burn,” Andromache muttered, angry they’d not arrived in time. 

“We should tend the dead.” Nicolò started to dismount. “It is all we can…”

His words were cut off as a scream like a fury erupted from the remains of the church.

Nicolò crossed himself as Yusuf’s horse shied sideways.

“Demons?” Nicolò asked, staring.

“There is no such thing,” Andromache said, climbing down and pulling her ax loose. 

The scream wailed again, high and agonizing. The others followed her as she moved toward the wreck of the building, still smoldering and smoking. As she got close, the debris shifted and something crawled out. It opened its mouth and gave another otherworldly howl of agony, and for a moment, Andromache reconsidered her belief on demons. 

But the shape, as it pulled free and landed panting and writhing on the ground, was like a human. Black skin, burnt to cinders, flaked off exposing bright red flesh underneath. Any body hair on the naked form was long gone. The lips curled back in a rictus grin before the mouth opened again to scream.

Impossible. A person burned so badly should be dead. Long since dead. Andromache dropped her ax, pulling out a dagger. The kindest thing she could do for this soul was end its torment.

She stepped forward, drawing her arm up as she looked at the body and in the local dialect, said softly, “It’s almost over. Go in peace.”

Then a hand, crackling and damp with blood and effluvia, grabbed hers in an iron grip as honey brown, familiar eyes stared into her own and a voice rasped in Greek, “No.”

Andromache dropped the knife. “Gwynog?!”

The hand let go, the body rolling away from her and screaming again.

“Yusuf,” Quỳnh ordered behind them, “find the thinnest fabric we have and soak it in water. Quickly.”

Andromache watched, dumbfounded as the body...as Gwynog pushed up onto all fours, grunting and panting. Her body was healing, the black burned flesh still flaking away, but it was slow. So slow.

“Sister,” Nicolò kneeling next to Andromache and beside Gwynog, his eyes wide. “Sister, please. Be still. Let us help.”

“No.” The word rattled in her chest like death. “Up.”

“Up?” 

“Get... Up.” She rocked herself back and forth, keening. 

Nicolò looked at Andromache in horror. “She cannot.”

Gwynog ignored them, forcing herself up onto her knees. Her lips slowly rebuilt themselves as she panted and swayed.

“Gwynog, you need to rest and heal. You need water.”

“Have….to...help...them.”

“Who?” Nicolò asked softly, reaching to steady her but freezing before he could touch her. “Who?”

“Cat.”

“A cat?” Andromache blinked. “A cat can wait.”

“Combs.”

“Catacombs?” Nicolò asked. Then he glanced at the church. “Oh, Sister, if the catacombs were under the church, I’m sorry.”

“No.” Gwynog ignored them, forcing herself up onto one foot. She screamed again, then panted some more. Skin on her torso had finished flaking and had started to regrow soft pale skin over the raw red flesh. She gagged and dry heaved for a long moment.

“Gwynog, stop.” Andromache used her best command voice. “You aren’t alone. Let us help.”

Gwynog forced her other foot under herself and stood. Then swayed violently. This time, Nicolò moved, catching her as gently as he could and holding her even as she wailed.

“Tell me how to help, Gwynog,” Andromache demanded. Then, softly, “Please.”

“League...northwest.” The woman gasped, shaking in Nicolo’s arms. “Old rock cropping. Locked grate. Other exit.”

“Okay.” Andromache nodded. “The women and children?”

Gwynog managed to nod. “Chisel. Hammer. Break it open.”

“We’ll go. Let Nicolò and Yusuf care for you.”

“Hurry.” And then Gwynog’s knees went out from under her.

Andromache shook her head in wonder. She’d had burns, some mild. Some more serious. All of them hurt to heal. But Gwynog? Gwynog had been burned over her whole body. And crawled out, ready to help others before healing herself.

Glancing at Nicolò where he’d caught her and lowered her gently down, she gave him a grim nod. “See if you can find out where her things are and get them. She’d done here. Try to get her to drink, then wrap her wet and get her out of town, back the way we came. Go at least a few leagues. We’ll find you when it’s done.”

Nicolò nodded.

“And Nicolò?” Andromache leaned over, picking up her dagger and handing it to him. “It may be kinder to kill her at some point. Don’t flinch.”

His eyes went cold as a winter sea. “No, Andromache. I won’t flinch.”

“Good.”

She turned to Quỳnh. “Let’s see if we can find a smithy and get a hammer and chisel.”

Her lover nodded and the two women strode away.

***

Hours later, they found Nicolò and Yusuf three leagues away, off the road in the woods with their two horses and a third they remembered as Gwynog’s mount. Yusuf stood watch as Nicolò sat beside a figure sprawled prone on a bedroll. Shiny, patchy skin covered the face, though the hair and eyebrows remained gone. It would take that time to grow back.

“How is she?” Quỳnh asked as they slipped from their own horses and added them to the guy line in the trees.

“In and out,” Yusuf responded. “We...we slit her throat once when the  agony got to be too much. It seemed to help.”

Nicolò stood, leaving Gwynog sleeping. “What happened back there?”

Andromache looked down at the woman she’d thought of as weak. In many ways unworthy for so long.

“They had a little warning. The men drew lots to see who would stand and fight,” Andromache said, relaying the story told to her by the people they let free of the catacombs. “Running into the hills has meant death in other places- the raiders hunted people down for sport. So Gwynog urged them into the catacombs, and promised to let them out the other side after.”

“Why didn’t she go with them?”

Quỳnh reached down, taking one of Andromache’s hands and squeezing it. “Our sister refused to go. The entrances are a village secret. The raiders didn’t know where they were. When they entered the church and demanded it be turned over, she stood against them with the two priests.”

“So they burned them alive?”

“They could hear the screaming in the catacombs.”

Yusuf let loose an oath in his mother tongue. “Why was she even here? She left for Salerno weeks ago.”

“She passed through and found out there were three women soon due to deliver and the village midwife recently died. She stayed on to see them through.”

“How long?” Yusuf asked. “How long will her agony last?”

Andromache and Quỳnh looked at each other. Finally, Quỳnh said, “We do not know. Neither of us has ever been burned like this before.”

“What do we do, then?” Nicolò returned to her side, taking a cloth and a bowl of water Yusuf had fetched for him and wetting it before gently laying it over Gwynog’s forehead. She whimpered softly.

“We take care of her,” Andromache replied, love swelling in her chest. “She’s one of us.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While there aren't specifically catacombs in this region of Romania, there were existent Roman Gold Mines and a lot of them. It's not a leap to imagine them being converted in some tiny village for that purpose.


	16. The old men call me by mother's name

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After Manvir passes away and sends Copley one last info dump, he puts to pieces together about something that's been nagging him for decades. He and Gwyn have an enlightening conversation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from Skeleton Key by Dessa

**2055, Surrey**

It wasn’t the first time she’d come to visit James in his home. That had been not long after she’d turned the croft over to Ioan and Evain for good. When she’d been unmoored and unsure what came next. She’d spent a week cooking him meals and helping him with intel. Nights listening to jazz and talking about books. About his wife. About time.

Time had gone on, and the spry man she had met moved so much slower now. His hair had gone a distinguished grey, but still thick. Reading glasses were now his constant companion. He took the stairs in what had once been his chic modern home slower. But his mind remained sharp, even as he trained young Rafe Hernandez to succeed him. 

Rafe had gone out for the evening, leaving the two of them alone. Coltrane played on vinyl. Gwyn had made curry, one of Bargitta’s recipes. She’d cried softly in the kitchen, cooking it. Even now, the loss of the Arjwals hurt. Manny, the platonic love of her long life, and Bargitta, the sister-wife she’d never expected to meet and love.

“I miss them too,” James commented softly, and Gwyn shook herself, looking at him. “Manny and I talked...goodness, almost daily once we’d met. And Bargitta used to make a point to call me herself and remind me of due check ups and let me know about promising new research about my wife’s…”

He trailed off, and Gwyn reached for him, taking his wrinkled hand in hers. She squeezed it. “They should have been like us. They had the hearts for it.”

“Do you wish it on people though?” James picked up the glass of mint tea from the table where she’d set it close at hand for him. “I remember Booker’s desperation, all those years ago. And while I can see the good, I can also see…”

“The curse?” she finished for him. He nodded and sipped. She sighed. “It isn’t easy. It breaks your heart so many times over. If you’d told me this century would break mine this badly, I might have found an ice cave somewhere and tried to sleep through it.”

“Does that work?” James asked, sitting forward a little.

“Not well. And not that long.” She shrugged. “Let me have some secrets.”

He went quiet for a long moment. Then he stood, his hand finding the silver handle of the ebony cane at his side.  Sébastien , if Gwyn had to guess the gift giver. It had too antique a flair of James’s modern sensibilities, but  Sébastien would find just such a thing. He walked across the room to his desk and pulled out a key, unlocking a lower drawer. He rifled through it for a moment before coming back with an old-fashioned manila envelope.

“You have a few less, I’m afraid.”

“Oh?” Gwyn sat up, cupping her hands around her own tea glass. “How so?”

“Manvir wrote a final file exchange for me, before he went. Everything he had on you, dropped to me from a secured server before it self-destructed.” He smiled faintly. “If you still have your old ring, that tracking program might still work.”

She’d taken it off, after Bargitta had been buried. But she still had it safe in a cache. “Everything he had?”

“Every alias he’d made for you. Any fingerprints in the system you’d left.” He paused. “The glue on fake prints was a stroke of genius, by the way. Where did you find your donors?”

“Morgues in Canada when I was a doctor there in the 80s and 90s. I looked for people with no cause to be in the system.”

“Smart. And forward thinking.”

“You’re working toward asking me about something, James.” Gwyn sipped her tea and steadied herself. “Ask.”

“Miranda Cosgrove.”

The name lay between them as Gwyn’s quaint old analog watch ticked the seconds away. Finally, she chuckled. “Was she suspected, then?”

“No.” James set the file down. “Not at all. There was a note about being unable to reach her for a follow-up, but her boss, Mr. Gupta, informed police that she’d had a bit of a breakdown over the whole thing and had gone to stay with a cousin in remote Canada. Since there was no sign at all of foul play, the whole thing was dropped. Heart arrhythmia.” He rapped the old file with his knuckles.

“Poor Ms. Cosgrove.”

“How did you know about Meta Kozak?” James asked. “You didn’t come back into the team’s lives until almost six months after the Merrick affair.”

“I woke up from the dreams of the lab. It wasn’t hard to find out where it had happened.” She shrugged. “Then I called Manny.”

“Ah. That explains the...difficulty I had during my own clean up of the digital footprint.”

“Indeed.” Gwyn raised her glass in salute. “He was quite impressed with you, when he realized who he had been battling.”

“And so you just, what, used a burner alias and got on a plane?”

“Yes.”

“Why?” James leaned forward. “Why not go to them?”

“Because that wasn’t what they needed.” She closed her eyes, the dreams there in painful, vivid technicolor. “Andromache had been harmed, Nico and Joseph tortured. Sébastien had done what he’d done and they had Nile to care for. They didn’t need a ghost from two hundred years in the past who’d already failed them. They needed someone to finish the job.”

“They took it for granted that she died of natural causes,” James mused.

“Human life is fragile. I’d imagine someone mortal, going through what Dr. Kozak had, might succumb to a heart attack. I chose my method carefully on purpose.” Gwyn shrugged. “Plus, as far as they knew, I was dead. And even if I hadn't been. Andromache had never really imagined me as a killer. Nico and Joseph had a better idea of what I could do, but would have expected something more messy, I think. And Sébastien and Nile didn’t know me. Not yet.”

“What did they say when you told them?”

Gwyn remained silent, staring at him. 

James blinked at her, going wide eyed. “You’ve never told them.”

“They didn’t need to know.”

“You killed the last threat tying them to Merrick.”

“I took out a threat to a secret binding all of us.” Gwyn took another slow sip of tea. “It was for my benefit as much as theirs.”

“Hmmm.” James’s little noise of consideration as he stared at her made Gwyn chuckle again, just a little.

“I’m not saying I have not done penance for the joy I took in the pain she died in.” Gwyn shrugged. “I’m only human, after all.”

“Fair enough. She was….” He shook his head. “I do not regret the years of service I have given since, but the choices that took me there, I do. I didn’t fully comprehend the evil I allied myself with.”

“Roads to perdition.” Gwyn raised her glass again. “Here’s to finding our turn offs.”

James raised his own glass. “Cheers.”

“And James?”

“Yes, Gwyn?” he replied.

“If you tell them, I’ll have to kill you.”

“Tell them what?”

Gwyn smiled. “Excellent.”


	17. But it looks like your afterlife is covered (I hope on Earth you're careful kid)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Copley's replacement loses a friend to violence, Gwyn discovers there are still some things she finds it easy to kill for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title is from Dessa's Alibi.
> 
> TW for discussion of murder for hire, murder.

**Seattle, 2081**

The only constant in immortality, she had learned long ago, was change.

She’d left this city almost sixty years ago, returning to a family she wasn’t sure she’d ever see again. In those years since, she’d lost people. Found others. Lost more. Broke and remade her heart. Screamed defiance and wept for grace from her Lord. Prayed. Cursed. Kept going.

And so did the emerald city. Oh, some things had changed. Tech booms had busted and housing prices had finally fallen off some. The watermark on the Sound crept up, endangering the historic piers. People hadn’t taken cruises much after the last global pandemic.

But Seattle remained, an enclave of refugees and immigrants, a city of a hundred languages, with funky neighborhoods and ethnic eateries cheek by jowl with the bars still floating the music scene. And around it, wild temperate rainforests.

Gwyn’s small house near Alki Beach overlooked the water, and she brought a cup of tea to the man who’d come to see her.

“Just sugar, right Rafe?”

Rafael Hernandez, the man she’d helped James Copley find years ago and recruit to replace himself. The one who wiped their tracks and ran their ops and mostly lived out of Copley’s now historic home in Surrey. She left fewer tracks than the others, did fewer true operations. She’d finished medical school again not long before, and had taken a position here working specifically with refugee healthcare initiatives and indigenous populations. Even after coming back from Kemijarvi, she hadn’t felt called to it.

So she’d been surprised to get his call. 

“Sugar. Right. Thanks, Gwyn.”

They sipped in silence for a while, sitting in the summer sun and listening to the seabirds. Finally, she stretched, setting her own mug down. “What brings you here, Rafe?”

“I...I lost an old friend, recently.”

“Oh.” Not what she’d expected. Not at all. “I’m so sorry.”

“Esperanza was the best of us, you know?” He laughed, the sound wet, and though he wore sunglasses, Gwyn knew she’d find tears in his eyes. “Just brilliant and compassionate and full of life. She worked as a pediatric nurse in a NICU.”

“What happened?” Gwyn asked softly, her hand reaching out to rest on his arm.

“Her fucking bastard of a husband.” Rafe shuddered. “May he rot in hell!”

Oh, poor Rafe. “Murder suicide?”

“No. No, I could almost respect the _hijo de puta_ then. At least he’d have done himself.” He stood suddenly, pacing the deck. “No, he paid someone to do it. Make it look like a carjack gone wrong. He wanted out of the marriage, wanted a younger woman, but didn’t want to lose his prestige as a family man.”

“Did the hitman roll?”

“To the team.” He grimaced. “I put them on it. I couldn’t believe it. The story was too....neat. He gives her a fancy new car for Christmas and she’s dead six weeks later? Booker and I tracked the man down, and then Nicky and Joe got him to talk. He fingered Alejandro as paying him.”

“Where’s Alejandro now?” Gwyn asked softly.

“Dead.”

She nodded. “Good.”

“I did it myself. Nile and Booker helped me clean it up.”

“Okay.” Gwyn waited until his shoulders slumped and he came to sit next to her. “Was that your first kill?”

“No. I don’t regret it. Him.” He dropped his head into his hands, rubbing at his temples. “When we looked into it after, we found a whole part of the dark web where men can go looking for people to take care of this kind of problem.”

“Fuck.” That crusty black scar in her heart, the one that began in Dalmatia all those years ago protecting her children at the monastery, the one that exacted a gruesome revenge in Paris, the one who felt so little guilt for Meta Kozak, cracked and roiled anew. “That’s….just, fuck.”

“And other than hacking it repeatedly and shutting it down, I don’t know what else I could do.”

Gwyn sits there, running a finger around the edge of her tea mug. Thinking of the research she’d been doing on the side. On new, entirely synthetic drugs. Ones that relied less on nature as resources shrank and could instead be synthesized in labs. The implications for medicine would be astonishing. The implications for poisons.

“I have an idea.”

****

**Los Angeles, 2081**

“Are you Helene?” 

The man looked exactly like she expected. Average. Average height, average weight. Average hair loss. He’d had something done under his eyes, and the surgeon hadn’t been amazing. But his suit was top end and his shoes screamed bespoke.

“Carlo?”

The man sat down, reaching up and loosening his tie. “You’re prettier than I expected.” Gwyn raised an eyebrow. “I mean...that is to say, you don't look like…”

He stopped, stone silent. Predictable. Pathetic.

“I look like someone in your circle, don’t I Carlo? A new mom in the PTA group? Someone in your wife’s spin class?” Gwyn idly reached out, using the expertly manicured nail on her pinky to push the skewer of olives around her martini. “Someone she’d be comfortable befriending. Confiding in.”

He nodded. 

“Tell me why we’re meeting, Carlo.”

“Does it matter?”

“I prefer to take certain jobs. Chances are, what is going to happen would happen with or without me.” Gwyn picked up the martini, taking a slow sip. Carlo’s eyes stayed on her lips after. Classy. “If this is happening because she abuses your kids or is fucking the underaged pool boy, then hire someone else. She doesn’t get my grace.”

Carlo blanched. “No. No, nothing like that. She’s a...a good woman. I just can’t lose my kids, and if we divorce.” He closed his eyes. “We married so young, and she’s never done anything. What would even happen to her if she was on her own?”

She’d live, you prick.

Gwyn’s smile never slipped. “Alright then. Here’s how this is going to go. We’re colleagues who just finished a deal. We are going to stand. I am going to hand you my card and brush a continental kiss to each of your cheeks, then walk out of here. You have forty-eight hours to confirm the job. Once it’s in motion, you pay. No cancellations, no cold feet. Understood?”

“Yes. I mean, can’t I confirm now?”

“Only after we leave. There’s a contact number on the card. You’ll speak to my associate about booking and details.” Gwyn finished her martini and set the glass aside. Then she pulled a lipstick from her purse and expertly reapplied the shade. Then she dropped a $50 bill on the table. “Call from your car in the lot for all I care.”

“Okay. Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet.” She stood and waited for him to do likewise, a Cheshire smile on her face. Pulling out a card, she handed it to him, then leaned in and brushed a kiss across both cheeks like the femme fatale in a European movie. “Have a pleasant evening.”

Gwyn walked away, her heels striking even steps on the bar’s tile. She exited, crossing the hotel lobby and stepping out into the warm Los Angeles night.

“Cab, Miss?”

“No, thank you.” She walked to the stop light, crossed the street, and entered the lobby of the building across the way, then took the elevator up.

Rafe Hernandez sat at the window of the room on the third floor, his binoculars trained on the entrance of the hotel. “Nice work.”

“Old hat,” Gwyn said, slipping off the heels and sitting on the couch of the little apartment to rub her feet. “$10 says he walks out in the next thirty seconds.”

“Suckers bet. More Nicky’s speed.”

“True.”

At twenty five seconds, Carlo Ortez walked out of the hotel and gave his claim ticket to the valet. Gwyn joined Rafe at the window.

“In five, four, three, two…”

On one, Carlo suddenly grabbed his right arm and staggered, bumping into the taxi standing and nearly knocking over the attendant. He slid to the ground in a slump as the man gawked, then grabbed his radio and called for help.

“Good-bye, Carlo.”

“Good Riddance.”

They both walked away, moving back toward the couch and collapsing.

“That’s what, four?”

“Five. You did two men in Chicago in the same weekend.”

“Oh. Right.” Gwyn blinked at that, frowning. Losing count bothered her in a way that having poisoned a man just minutes ago hadn’t. 

“Are you okay?” She looked over to find Rafe watching her closely. 

She held her peace for a while, mulling that over. She’d never been a warrior at heart. Never wanted battle. But this was something else. Not Paris, exactly. But...if she hadn’t handed the card to Carlo, laced with a poison absorbed through the skin that caused a heart attack in minutes, if Rafe hadn’t answered his request on the dark web, someone else would have. And his wife Annabelle wouldn’t have had a mostly painless end.

“This can’t go on forever,” she said finally. “I can only take so many long weekends.”

Rafe nodded. “We’ve been posting the autopsies as a warning. Traffic has fallen off, dramatically.”

Gwyn sighed. Good. “Five more. Maximum. Then we’re done.”

“Agreed.” Rafe reached over, squeezing her hand. “And Gwyn? Thank you. For me. And for Esperanza.”

For hope. Gwyn had killed for worse reasons than that. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hijo de puta- son of a bitch (Spanish)


	18. I wipe my brow and I sweat my rust...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gwyn's POV on the fire she went through in Transylvania and it's aftermath from Chapter 15.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Experiences with burns and aftermath, violence. 
> 
> Title from Radioactive by Imagine Dragons.

**1238, Transylvania**

They got everyone into the crypt and into the catacombs, the gate locked. Then she and the two priests made it back upstairs and shoved the altar back over the trapdoor just before the raiders came. Men with swords and spears and axes. Already fouled with blood and rage. 

What gold they thought to find here, she couldn’t say. What riches and treasures. No one in this town was wealthy, working for their lords in their far off towers. Left unprotected. 

Gwyn took a deep breath, ready for death. Martyrdom came easy anymore. Dying quick and brutal on the end of a blade. The trick, she had learned, was to make herself just enough of a pain in the ass to make other assaults more trouble than they were worth. She found in this part of the world, writhing and screaming in her native tongue made men fear a demon possessed her. 

She hadn’t accounted for the torches. Or the brutality of men who would punish defiance with something other than a sword to the stomach or a knife to the throat. Forced back against the altar with Father Seneslav and Father Petru with nowhere to run, she bit her lip to bleeding as the first torches landed at their feet, smouldering at the woolen over gowns and catching on the embroidered linen altar cloth behind them.

The altar cloth caught her veils and the sickly smell of burning hair filled her lungs as she tried to yank it loose and throw it down. Other raiders moved through the small church, lighting the benches and the wall hangings, tossing torches to the rafters.

Gwyn shrieked as her hands burned against the veils, as the linen of her shift caught some the smoldering wool. Smoke stung her eyes and she coughed as the two priests tried to beat back the flames now surrounding them, as the raiders retreated, shutting the door behind them.

Petru screamed as his garments began to burn in earnest. To her other side, Seneslav had dropped to his knees, praying.

Gwyn’s skin began to crackle and she fought hard to keep her own screams at bay, aware that all that separated them from the small crypt and the entrance to the catacombs was a grate. 

Shadrach, Meschach, and Abednego. Three youths in a furnace. But Seneslav was an old man, and Gwyn was over five hundred now. Only Petru could be accounted young at his nearly thirty years.

‘Lord,’ Gwyn thought as she staggered, hearing Seneslav’s screams join Petru’s. ‘Help us.’

Only bright pain answered her. Gwyn’s hand found the small daily use knife at her belt, pulling it free. A wall of fire stood between them and the door. A second burned behind them now, over the trapdoor into the crypt. And if they entered the catacombs, with no one outside to break the second lock, all was lost anyway.

A good death. An easier death. It was the only miracle she could give Petru and Seneslav now. She staggered to the old man, keening in his burning garments. “Forgive me, father,” she murmured in the local tongue. Then she slit his throat quick and clean.

He fell forward, gone before he hit the ground. The agony grew as Gwyn’s garments burned, charring her flesh. Petru flailed near her, his screams growing hoarse as he moved in a morbid mockery of dance. 

She caught him and drove the knife into his chest, aiming true. His dark eyes widened comically as the fire swirled around them. Then she pulled her arm back as the life winked out, letting the body fall.

Burning, burning, the smell of it coating her tongue, her throat, her lungs. Their flesh, hers, their hair, hers. Nothing, no injury, no death, had ever been like this. 

‘Let this be the last,’ Gwyn prayed, sinking to her knees. ‘Let the fire take me home.’

Closing her eyes against the heat, she brought the knife up to her own throat, and shoved.

***

Burning, low and over coals. Skin blistering and charring. Pressed down.

Scrambling. Shrieking. Out. Out. Out.

Death.

Hot, hot, hot.

Catacombs. People. Out. Must crawl out.

Hand on white hot ash. Screaming. Writhing.

Death.

No. No No No. Out.

Light. Crawl toward that light, clear like day.

Out of hell, shrieking and burning, still burning.

The ground is cool. So cool. Bury me in the cool dark ground.

Not dead, not dead.

NO! Greek. 

Do I know you?

Up. Catacombs. Must. Get. Up.

Sister. I’m a holy sister. Saved from fire.

Shedrach, Meschach, Abednego.

Only me. Why only me?

Up. Must. Catacombs.

Agony. Agony, agony, agony.

Trust the woman.

Let go.

***

Screaming awake, nerves burning.

Fire. There’s a fire nearby.

Wood crackling, benches and walls and roof joists.

We’re going to die, please.

Please, please, don’t let me burn again, please.

I’m still burning, burning, shrieking.

The knife is a blessing.

***

Nico. He was Nico beside her bed.

Nico and...Yusuf? Where was Yusuf?

“Yuuu…” Gwyn croaked the words. Nico looked at her. 

“Sorella?”

“Yuuuss…”

“Yusuf?”

Gwyn tried to nod, then whimpered.

“Easy, sorella mia. He went into town with Andromache and  Quỳnh.”

Not burning then. Yusuf hadn’t been in the fire. Why had she been in the fire?

“Can you drink some more water for me?”

He helped her sit up and she sipped slowly at the cold stoneware cup, letting the water slide down her throat.

And then the pain started deep in her chest. Gwyn gagged, coughing and hacking, unable to stop. She shoved Nico feebly away, turning and ending up halfway off the bed.

“Gwynog? Sorella?” Nico’s panicked words barely cut through the pain and the coughing as the first bloody, blackened chunks came up. Lung tissue, shed finally, but now clogging her airways. Eventually, the coughing overwhelmed her, cutting off her breath.

Gwyn died again in agony, the taste of ash and iron in her mouth.

***

Night. A small oil lamp illuminated Yusuf on the stool beside her now.

“Nico?” she wheezed.

“Sleeping. Maybe.” Yusuf reached out and stroked her cheek with his long, gentle fingers. “You scared him badly, saadiqaa.”

“Mea...culpa.”

“You are not to blame.” Yusuf stroked his beard. “Andromache and Quỳnh are asking questions to try to track down where the raiders have come from. Track them back.”

“Revenge?” her words wheezed out again, her throat still raw from the last time.

“Justice. And to make sure they do not harm others as they harmed your friends.”

Gwyn nodded. Her chest hurt less, but her body still ached with exhaustion.

“Can you try taking a little broth?”

“Will you be scared if I somehow die of it?”

Yusuf frowned. “That isn’t funny.”

“I didn’t mean it to be.” She paused, catching her breath. “I have never been this badly hurt. I don’t know what it will take to heal me. I may die again and again.”

Yusuf sighed softly, then nodded. “You know, of Lykon.”

“I do.” Gwyn reached her own hand out, managing to flop it onto his arm. “When my time is up, it’s up.”

Yusuf simply grunted and went to get her the broth. 

This time, she managed half a bowl and some water. Then she passed out and slept.

***

She woke to find Andromache’s eyes cataloging her like a general considering troops before battle.

“That bad?” Her voice came out less of a wheezy and more of a rattle. That might be an improvement.

“Yes.” Andromache has never been one to mince words with her, no reason to start now. “But far better than when you crawled from the wreckage.”

That had been Andromache? Gwyn’s memory was hazy at best, but the Greek suddenly made sense. “How long has that been?”

“A sevenight.”

Oh. For that matter… “Where are we?”

“A village some distance away. We heard of the raids and came to try to help. We got there too late for this one.” Andromache frowned. “Did you try to fight at all?”

“The town did. The priests and I were getting people out through the crypt and the catacombs. And then after...well, they were many, we were three, and the only blade between us was a small thing I wore on my belt for daily tasks.”

“And none of the three of you gave up the catacombs?”

Gwyn frowned. “None of us feared death.”

Andromache huffed. “I have not seen a worse death, burning alive.”

“I didn’t the first time. I used the knife on myself.” Gwyn laughed a little. “I didn’t think about crawling out of the still smoldering wreckage. The next few deaths I definitely burned alive crawling through hot coals.”

Andromache gave what Gwyn imagined was an oath in a language long forgotten by others. “I do not understand you, Gwynog.” She paused, her eyes dropping to the ends of Gwyn’s fingers where the nails were still slowly regrowing. “But you have courage. I respect that, sister.”

Gwyn closed her eyes, smiling just a little. “Thank you.” Then she paused as well. “Will you still respect me if I ask you to help me with a chamber pot? It still hurts to move.”

Andromache’s laugh was the best thing Gwyn had heard since the crackle of the fire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorella/sorella mia- sister/ my sister (Italian) 
> 
> mea culpa- through my error (Latin)
> 
> saadiqaa- my friend (Arabic)


	19. It's a Kind of Magic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set during WHAT THE WATER GAVE US, after Gwyn's fatal run in during horse training, she and Ioan have a late night talk about immortality and life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from the Queen Song.

The Croft, Wales, Spring 2021

Gwyn lay propped up on pillows in her bed, soft fleece pajamas the same ones that Bargitta gave her on the ship out at sea all those months ago. How life had changed.

Quiet footsteps echoed in the hall outside her door, followed by a soft knock. “Gwyn?”

Gwyn folded shut the book she’d been reading, setting it aside onto the nightstand. “Come in, love.”

Ioan pushed the door open. He wore his blue robe over his own plaid pajamas and t-shirt, slippers on his feet. “Did I wake you?”

“No, I was up reading. What’s on your mind?”

Ioan hesitated a long moment, scuffing his feet at the edge of the rug and the hardwood floor. 

Ah. Gwyn had been waiting for this. Since the day in the paddock when Gwynedd had reared at the damnable stray dog, and she’d shoved Ioan clear only to end up under the pony’s sharp hooves. When she’d gasped back to life on  Sébastien’s towel covered couch and heard the panic and fear in her darling boy’s voice. 

“Come here, my love,” Gwyn said, flipping the edge of the covers up and waving Ioan to her. “Come get cozy.”

Ioan stopped hesitating, hurrying to the edge of the bed and kicking his slippers off before climbing in and nestling in next to her. She wrapped an arm around him and pressed a kiss to the top of his head.

“I am sorry you had to see what you saw, Ioan. I know it was awful.”

“I keep thinking I dreamed it.” The boy’s own arms wrapped around her, holding on tight. “But I found the worst of the towels and your shirt in the burn bag today.”

“It wasn’t a dream.”

“You're immortal.”

“For all intents and purposes.” She brushes the ginger hair back from his face and straightens his glasses for him. “Everything that lives dies someday. I will as well. My time hasn’t come yet.”

“So you could have died? When Gwynedd…” Ioan stopped.

“Possibly. But it’s my job to protect you, Ioan. I’d make that choice again, even if I knew it was my time.”

The boy shivered and clung tighter to her at that. “If something happened to you…”

“Then Uncle Sébastien and Uncle James would make sure you were all right. Loved and cared for.” It wasn’t something she’d spoken of to either of them, but she also knew she wasn’t wrong.

“Oh.” Ioan nodded. 

They sat together quietly for a little while, the heaviness of the conversation settling between them. Finally, Ioan asked, “Can I ask you...things?”

“You may. I reserve the right to not answer some of them.”

Ioan scrunched his nose at her. “Gwynnnnn.”

“Let a lady have a few secrets.”

“Fine.” He paused. “Uncle Sébastien said he’s over 200. How old are you?”

“Much older than that.”

The boy harrumphed in her arms.

“I’m kidding with you. I was around 19 summers when I died. And that was around 560 CE. So…”

Ioan gapped at her. “You’re 1480 years old?”

“Give or take a few years. We weren’t as precise back then, and it was a long time ago now.”

“Holy…”

“Language.”

Ioan snorted. “Did you meet Shakespeare?”

“Yes.”

“What about Queen Victoria?”

“Once, in passing.”

“The Beatles?!”

“No.” Gwyn paused. “But I babysat Elvis as a small child once.”

The boy blinked at her. “You’re putting me on.”

“I am. Good catch.”

Ioan went a little quiet. “Have you...have you had to kill people before?”

Gwyn sighed. “Unfortunately, yes. But I’d rather not talk about it.”

“Okay.” He went quiet again for a few minutes, chewing his lip. “Have you been in love?”

“Not romantic love. I really am aro-ace. That’s never been a lie.” She smiled softly at him. “But you can be deeply, platonically in love with people. And yes, I have. You Uncle Manny, for one. We were platonically married for a while, years ago.”

“Really?!”

“Really. I’ll tell you that story someday. It’s not all pretty and a bit much for tonight.” Gwyn yawned. “One more question, then bed. Deal?”

Ioan nodded, thinking hard again. Finally, he asked, “What’s the best and worst thing that’s changed in your lifetime?”

Gwyn smiled. “Electric lights.”

Ioan looked at her. “That’s one thing.”

“It’s both the best and the worst.”

“How can it be both?” he asked. “That’s not possible.”

“It’s the best because with the flick of a switch, I can lay in bed and read a book, and not worry about falling asleep with an open flame burning. No cow will kick over an electric light and burn a city to the ground.” She paused, her eyes closing. “I could do surgery and not have something stand over me dripping hot wax or risking spilling lamp oil on the patient.”

“You can do surgery?!”

“I can. I’ve been a healer for hundreds of years.”

“Then what’s so bad about it?”

“When I was your age, growing up in these hills, on a clear night, we could see so many stars. Galaxies of them, and planets. It was like diamonds spilled across dark blue velvet.” Her smile faded. “Now, even in remote deserts, or the Outback in Australia, it's not the same. Humanity has so many electric lights burning all the time, it blots out the firmament. Diminishes it.”

“Oh.”

“I miss that sense of wonder, is all. I’d like to see stars like that, one more time.”

“Maybe you’ll live long enough to go to space and see them there.”

“Maybe.” She leaned forward, pressing another kiss to his forehead. “Do you want to sleep in here with me, or in your own room?”

“Mine.” Ioan hugged her and kissed her cheek. “Good night, Gwyn.”

“Good night, Ioan, my love. Sleep well.”

He crawled off the bed, grabbed his slippers, and was gone. 

When the door closed, Gwyn sighed softly, then turned off her light and prepared for sleep.


	20. The Rumpus and Ruckus Are Comfortable Now

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After Kemijarvi, bad intel on a solo mission leaves Gwyn in enemy hands and pretty sure she's on her own. Luckily, family has her back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: canon typical violence and torture
> 
> Title from Bang! by AJR.  
> Song also referenced in text, as well as  
> Dust in the Wind by Kansas  
> Carry On My Wayward Son by Kansas

Somewhere in the Middle East, 2074

In Gwyn’s considered opinion, she was pretty much fucked. And she’d no one to blame but herself and her own boredom.

After leaving Kemijarvi, she’d spent time with her family. Joe and Nicky on Malta, enjoying the sun and ocean and Nicky’s cooking. Time on Martinique with  Sébastien, barely able to leave his sightline as they swam and ate fresh fruit and went hiking. Time in Ho Chi Minh City with Nile and Quỳnh, eating street food and practicing Nile’s Vietnamese.

She’d even spent a few days at the croft with Evain and the children. Had met her first great-grandchild.

And then she’d found herself at loose ends. Nowhere she had to be. No immediate cause at hand. Nothing to do. She owned other properties, but no place called to her.

Then an old contact reached out. Someone she’d met years ago when she’d taken one off jobs through Copley, helping get young women out of bad situations.

A hiker, someone who accidentally crossed a border and got grabbed. A government keeping it quiet as they decided whether to let the girl go or to bring her to the capital and try her as a spy. A distraught single mother who couldn’t remotely afford any kind of Kidnap and Ransom professional help. And the girl’s home government wouldn’t touch it.

The smart thing would have been to call the others. But Nile, when Gwyn had left, had been ramping the team up for a new op of their own. And Sébastien had talked about taking his boat out for a long distance sail. Unreachable.

She could have called Rafe Hernandez, she supposed. A good man, Copley’s replacement. But who else he might send, she didn’t know.

Besides, the intel said two guards in what amounted to a shepherd’s shack in the mountains. She’d done harder things.

Clearly, the angel for fools and children was off duty.

Instead of one girl, it was three. Friends, backpacking together.

The shack had more defenses than she’d thought. More defenders then two.

Only the non-lethal gas grenade and flash bang she’d managed to get her hands on kept the body count reasonable. But the gas wasn’t going to last long, and for all she knew, there were more guards coming.

Shit.

She got the girls as far as her jeep, then began unloading the more lethal weapons. “Can any of you drive stick?”

One of the bonuses, a girl named Jenna, raised her hand shakily.

“Are you sure?” Gwyn asked.

“I grew up ranching. I can.”

“Good.” She tossed her the keys. “You follow my tracks back, you cross the border in thirty-five miles. From there, keep going North. There’s a compass on the dash. You’ll eventually hit a town. Have someone there help you call your folks. Or the embassy.”

“What about you?” asked the girl she’d come for, Cameron.

“You don’t worry about me.” Gwyn took her cash out and shoved it into the girl’s hands. “You don’t even mention me. You got free, you stole a truck, you got over the border. Got it?”

She pulled out a zippo and her current passport, then set it on fire. No going back now.

“Shit.” The third girl stared at her wide eyed. Gwyn couldn’t remember that one’s name.

“I’m going to buy you time. Now go. Quick.” She gave them all a smile. “Make it worth it.”

The girls piled into the shitty little pick up, squished into the cab. Dust and rocks spun out under the tires as it lurched forward into drive, then turned and headed back into its own tracks.

“Well,” Gwyn muttered to the pre-dawn air. “This is going to suck.”

Then she took up as defensive of a position as she could and waited.

The gas held out longer than she hoped, but not long enough for her to feel comfortable the girls had made it. When the first follow trucks came over the rise, she sighted with her rifle, aiming for engine blocks and tires.

The return gunfire was something else, and while she managed to incapacitate at least a few vehicles, the headshot she took ended her defense quickly. 

As she gasped back to life, startling the man bending over her, Gwyn hoped it was enough. Right before her cracked her skull with the butt of his rifle.

Which is how she came to her present predicament. In a building with a concrete floor, hanging by her arms from a hook in the ceiling.

Strappado. Designed to dislocate the victim’s shoulders. It explained the agony where when she awoke, her body trying to heal and not able to, held in the unnatural pose. Fuck, she’d not suffered Stappado since that time she’d pissed off an inquisitor in the...15th? Or was it the 16th Century? 

Her toes touched the floor enough to know her shoes were gone and a large puddle of stinking, brackish water lay under her.

A man stepped forward. 

“Who are you?” He barked the words in the local tongue. She spoke it. Or a dialect of it. She hadn’t been in this country since it had become quite so totalitarian. Probably not since his grandmother had been a small child.

No point in making his life easy. In Latin, she answered, “Daemonium.”

The man blinked at her. Then frowned. “Where did you come from?”

“Inferni.”

Something on her head itched. She tried to tilt her head against her arm to rub it, but she couldn’t reach.

“Who are you?”

“Daemonium.”

“Where did you come from?”

“Inferni?”

The man turned and jerked his hand.

And suddenly, her body exploded, arching as electricity shot through her. It entered near her temples, then fanned out, shooting up her arms and down her spine to her legs, through all the salty, bloody bits of her. Her jaw clenched and seized and somewhere toward the back, a molar cracked.

After an eternity, it stopped.

Gwyn’s body dropped and she screamed as her shoulders took the weight. 

“This can be easy. Or it can be exquisitely awful.” The man shrugged. “You choose.”

Gwyn tongued the piece of cracked molar off the tooth already regrowing itself. Staring at the man, she spit it on the floor.

“Who are you?”

“Daemonium.”

He sighed. 

“Where are you from?”

“Inferni.”

Another hand jerk. 

Gwyn’s body arched again. She lost time.

Her captor took breaks. He had bodily needs, she supposed, even if they acted like she didn’t. She’d been given no water. No food. On her fourth go around with the electrocution, she’d lost bladder and bowel control, so she supposed that didn’t really matter much, other than making the tactical pants she wore disgusting.

She could do this for lifetimes.

She would do this for lifetimes.

Manny was dead. Dead, dead, dead. Bargitta too. The ring was taken off, in the safe back in Pembroke. No replacement. 

If the girls made it, and fuck, she hoped they made it, what her contact would here is that she went out saving them.

How long, before the others knew she was gone? Would Rafe notice she’d dropped off the grid. Not returned email? So soon after Kemijarvi, would it be written off as part of her grieving process?

“Who are you?”

“Dae...monium.”

“Where are you from?”

“In...ferni.”

Scrambled eggs. Would there come a point where her frontal lobe would just stay scrambled, like eggs? If this was her end, she’d been so pissed with herself. Sébastien...Sébastien...Sébastien didn’t deserve that. Or Nile. Or...names. The others had names. What were her grandchildren’s names? 

“Who are you?”

“Quis es?”

“Where did you come from?”

“What is the airspeed velocity of an unlade…”

Enough times, and it was almost like floating. Well, no. Lying. She was lying to herself. It’s nothing like floating, like in the Dead Sea with Nico and Yusuf and Andromache. Andromache would come for her. 

Andromache wouldn’t. She was dust in the wind. All we are is dust in the wind.

“Who are you?”

“Carry on my wayward son…”

“Dammit, where do you come from?”

“There’ll be peace when…”

She’d burned before. Badly. So badly. All of her, burned right up. Took so long to heal. This healed faster and slower. Brain healed fast then. Meatsack healed slowly. Meatsack healed fast now, brain was...confetti. It was all just confetti.

Bang. Bang, bang, bang.

Oh, she loved this song. Was an oldie now. I’m way too young to lie here forever. I’m way too old to try so whatever, come hang. Let’s go out with a…

Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.

Pop rocks.

“Gwyn?”

She blinked into wide, scared blue eyes. “Bas?” she slurred.

“Merde.” The hands holding her face let her go and her head fell forward again.

Footsteps moved away from her, and then two more gunshots unloaded into...something. 

“Bas?” she called out. “Are you a ‘lucination?”

"Non, ma soeur.” The hands were back, settling under her armpits this time. She whimpered. Then he called out, “Nile, help me get her down.”

It took a moment, but then the ropes went slack and Gwyn shrieked. She fell forward in Bas. Sébastien.

“Shit.” Nile. Nile, Nile, Nile’s voice. “Is that…”

“Gangrene on her fingers. From the lack of blood flow.” Sébastien growled. “Untie her.”

“We’re clear.” Another voice. Whose?

“Nico?” she asked, leaning her head against Sébastien’s shoulder as Nile worked to free her hands. 

“And Joe.” He spoke softly. “Quỳnh’s guarding our ride out.”

“That’s so lovely of them.”

“Nico,” Sébastien called out. “No loose ends, right?”

“Si.”

“Good.” 

The ropes freed her hands. Gwyn hissed. 

“This is going to hurt, but you will heal faster if your shoulders are back in the socket.”

“Okie dokie.”

Sébastien frowned. “I’m sorry, Gwyn. Un, deux, trois.”

The shattering pain was bright and brilliant and the last thing she felt before she passed out.

She woke up in something that might charitably be called a modern bed.

Sébastien sat next to her, a book open in his hand and a glass on the table next to him.

“What the fuck day is it?” she rasped.

“It’s you’re a dumbass day,” he replied, setting the book aside. With one strong arm, he lifted her up and held the glass, letting her drink slowly. “But by the current calendar, it’s the twenty third.”

She’d gone in on the ninth. Damn. “I sleep more than a day?”

“Half of one.” 

“On a scale of one to Andy, how angry are you all?”

“Nicky is trying to make filo from scratch.”

Gwyn winced. “That bad.”

“They could have...shit, their government could have taken you like Merrick did, Gwyn. We might never have found you.”

“How did you find me?”

“Hernandez caught wind of a story on the dark web of a black ops agent sacrificing herself for three young women and ran it down.” Sébastien ran his hand down his face. “We’re lucky we got to you.”

“In my defense, I went in with shitty intel and did the best I could.”

“Since when do you go in for this kind of thing at all?”

She sighed. “I did things on my own for two hundred years, Sébastien.”

“Yes. Doctoring and lawyering.”

“And underground railroad work. And getting women out of bad spots.” She shrugged. “I didn’t stop when I came back into the fold. I’m not helpless.”

“I know that. But this was close, Gwyn. Too close.” He shook his head. “You have family, again. I know you spent years alone, and comparatively, that’s still new, but  _ you _ taught me that. We are family. Next time, act like it.”

“I know.” She reached out, grabbing his hand. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m not the only one you have to apologize to.”

“I know that too. Help me up. I might as well start on dish duty now.”

That, at least, got her a laugh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Daemonium- Latin, demon  
> Inferni- Latin, hell  
> Quis es- Latin, Who are you?  
> Non, ma soeur- No, my sister.


	21. Come in, she said, I'll give you shelter from the storm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a hard mission, Nile asks Gwyn how she manages to walk alone so much. The answer is softer than she expects.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from Bob Dylan's Shelter from the Storm

2123, Johannesburg

It had been a shitty mission. Really, really shitty. Booker had been blown up. Quỳnh took a shot to the throat that left her drowning in her own blood. Joe and Nicky had died apart from each other, unable to see each other as they came to. And Liv, their newest, the baby, had gone down with a headshot. The nine body shots Nile took were a relief in comparison.

Nile sighed as she looked around the living room of the ridiculous safe house they were in.  Quỳnh and Liv sat curled into either side of Booker on one couch. Nicky and Joe lay tangled up on the other, just breathing together. And Nile?

Nile stood in the doorway, listening to the soft voice singing in the kitchen.

Gwyn had been on this mission with them, the honeytrap that got them the info the needed to go in. Had been the driver waiting in the van. Had a kill count of her own, something Nile knew she hated.

But as soon as they’d all staggered into this house, one of hers, she’d shooed them all away. “Showers. Clean clothes. I’ll make food.”

Nile slipped into the kitchen, watching as Gwyn diced up something and added it to the pot on the stove. The other woman continued singing softly to herself, hands moving with grace and speed as she worked. 

Like it was simply another day.

Maybe for her, it was. Gwyn had been in and out of their lives since she’d come back into the fold a hundred years ago. Sometimes on missions, if there was a need she could fill. Sometimes during downtime. She’d shown Nile parts of the world she hadn’t imagined. She’d held her as she cried her grief for Andy. For her mother and her brother. She’d assured her she had what it took to be the team leader when Andy died. She’d been the one to go get Liv.

But Gwyn, more than any of them, walked alone. Sometimes a year or more would go by and they wouldn’t see her. After her adopted son’s death, she’d gone to ground for a decade. She’d come if they called, if they needed her. Without hesitation, every time. 

But more than once, Nile wondered, if the shit show with Merrick hadn’t happened, would Gwyn have come back to them at all?

“Can you hand me the curry powder from the spice rack, Nile?”

Gwyn had apparently noticed her after all. Stepping into the kitchen, she moved to the spice rack along one wall and found what Gwyn asked for, handing it to her.

“Thank you.” Gwyn finished her dicing, adding whatever she’d been working on to the pot. “You can take a seat if you want. I don’t mind the company.”

“But you don’t need it, do you?” Nile asked, pulling out one of the chairs at the little table in the kitchen space and sitting. “Even after a day like today?”

Gwyn didn’t answer for a long moment, opening the curry and shaking a healthy amount into the pot. Only when she’d capped it and given the pot another stir did she turn. And Nile could see the exhaustion there, the same as the others. She’d lived part time with the woman once. She recognized the tightness in her smile and the dark circles under her eyes. 

“We all need to eat. I do better on days like today if I can care for others. Nico and I are a lot alike that way.” She shook her head. “If his day wasn’t so bad, I’m sure I’d be fighting him for control of the kitchen.”

“It’s your house,” Nile pointed out.

“He’s my little brother. I’d let him have it.”

Gwyn crossed to the sink, lifting out the large fine mesh strainer that had been dripping full of rice. She crossed back to the counter and the device Nile assumed was some futuristic rice maker. She dumped it in, humming again, then added water and a little butter before setting the lid and programming it.

“How do you manage when you’re alone?”

Gwyn set the strainer down, her head tipping forward. “I’m never really…”

Nile interrupted. “I know, you’re never alone because Jesus lives rent free in your head.” Gwyn snorted. “But it’s not like Jesus needs you to cook for him.”

“No. Not even in my dreams. I should though. He’s too thin.”

Nile laughed out loud.

Gwyn turned, taking her own seat at the table. “I truly never have been alone, though, Nile. I’ve just not always been with others like us.”

“I don’t know how you did that either. Two hundred years…”

“How does that old song from the early two thousands go? The years start coming, and they don’t stop coming.”

“Are you quoting Smash Mouth to me right now?”

“You’ve lived a century as we are now, Nile. Time flows faster when you know the end isn’t likely in sight.” Gwyn shrugged. “But everywhere I went in all that time, I found people to care for. To fight for. To let myself care about. It’s not the same as our family. But that doesn’t make it less.”

Nile nodded. “And you weren’t lonely? For them?” She tipped her head toward the living room. Toward Nicky and Joe, Quỳnh and the ghost of Andy.

“I missed them like a fiber gone from my heart. Always. Just like I miss you and  Sébastien, and now Olivia.” Gwyn reached for Nile’s hand, catching it with her own. “I love you all so much.”

“But you leave us.”

“Because I’m still not a warrior. Not like the five of you. Not like she was.” Gwyn looked down, and Nile realized she was looking for the blood on her hands from today, from the two men she’d had to shoot to protect their exfiltration. “So my path wanders and I wander with it. The absence makes the homecomings sweeter.”

“I wish you didn’t have to go.” 

“Me too.” Gwyn’s grip on her hand tightened. “But I’ll stay as much as I can. What happened all those years ago, me leaving for so very long. It won’t happen again, Nile. I promise you that.”

“Good.” 

The two of them sat there in the quiet for a long time. Until the rice cooker beeped. Gwyn let go and stood. “Dishes and silverware are in the banquet in the dining room. Can you set the table while I dish this up?”

“Sure, Gwyn.”

“Thank you, Nile.” 

As Nile moved through to the dining room, she heard Gwyn’s soft voice start up again, singing over the sounds of serving bowls being filled and glasses rattling with ice. Nile smiled, soft and fond. This is what Gwyn needed, people to care for. Maybe she’d start working to find more jobs for the team that needed that. Maybe they’d get to keep her close more often.

Nile wanted her family together, as much as she could have them.

“Dinner, everyone,” Gwyn called through the house.

Together. Home.


End file.
